Maputo, Aug. 12, 2025 (Lusa) - Mozambique's Competition Regulatory Authority (ARC) has fined the state-owned flag carrier airline Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM) around 11 million meticais (€149,000) for "anti-competitive practices", claiming that these result in excessive air fares.
According to decision no. 03/2025 published in the Official State Gazette and consulted on Tuesday by Lusa, the ARC gave LAM a 15-day deadline, which has already expired, to pay the fines after concluding, following an investigation that began in November 2022 and lasting a year, that the flag carrier had been charging excessive ticket prices.
The document indicates that the company is also being fined for lack of cooperation and providing incomplete information during the investigation.
“During the period under investigation, LAM engaged in abuse of a dominant position in the form of unjustified excessive pricing of airline tickets, an anti-competitive practice” provided for in Mozambican law, in which the ARC indicates that the carrier resorted to “the application of the YQ fuel surcharge, without legal or accounting basis", thereby maximising its revenue unduly and imposing inefficiency on consumers and causing them financial harm.
The YQ fuel surcharge is an additional fee charged by airlines to cover additional fuel costs, which LAM has been using to impose "unfairly excessive prices on the sale of airline tickets", which had previously been suspended by the Government through the ministry responsible for transport.
For this reason, the ARC considers that LAM applied this tariff in "historical contexts that ceased to exist many years ago", adding that it had previously been designed for international flights when LAM began to apply it to domestic flights.
"The YQ surcharge distorts the real price of air tickets, as it represents about 60% of the total amount paid by the consumer, which excessively increases the price of air tickets for passengers, once again placing LAM in a position of abuse of a dominant position (...) by adopting behaviour that is directly harmful to consumers," the document states.
The Competition Regulatory Authority also points out that during the investigations, LAM "never managed to demonstrate clear accounting methods and criteria for calculating or forming its prices" for the application of this surcharge.
“The lack of fixed criteria for determining and adjusting the YQ surcharge and the influence of factors such as the exchange rate are mentioned, but not in sufficient detail to ensure the transparency and reasonableness of the prices charged, which indicates the existence of unjustifiably excessive prices, an anti-competitive practice,” the decision states.
The Competition Regulatory Authority gave LAM two months to cease the anti-competitive practice and eliminate the YQ surcharge.
The Mozambican airline has been facing operational problems for several years related to a reduced fleet and lack of investment, with some non-fatal incidents reported, which experts attribute to poor aircraft maintenance. It is currently undergoing a profound restructuring process.
The President of Mozambique, Daniel Chapo, said on 28 April that there are “foxes and corrupt people” within LAM, with “conflicts of interest” that prevented the restructuring of the company in the first 100 days of government, including the goal of acquiring three aircraft during that period.
The crisis has led the company to virtually cease international flights this year, concentrating on domestic connections, and has also led to a new management in May and the entry of Hidroeléctrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), Portos e Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique (CFM) and Empresa Moçambicana de Seguros (Emose) as shareholders.
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