Low Cost Airlines threatened with Legal Action
By Darren Cronian on Saturday, June 16th, 2007

I found an interesting post on the Travel Weekly blog, regarding the news that the Office of Fair Trading is going to clamp down on dodgy air fares. About time too. I’m sick of seeing these ads by Ryanair [others are guilty too] for 1 penny flights.

Low Cost Airlines threatened with Legal Action

You can spend hours searching for these flights, and when you do, add taxes, luggage allowances and the price jumps to £50 so in my opinion it isn’t fair trading.

Airlines seem to think they can get away with anything, you only have to read my post a month or so back about compensation payments the airlines aren’t paying to consumers.

Quote from Travel Weekly:

It is not hard to see why they might want to drag their feet. Diminish a low-cost’s ability to slap did-I-just-see-that fares on the nearest flat surface and you take away its most effective way of luring punters

Time will tell if OFT are serious about taking legal action against airlines.


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4 responses to “Low Cost Airlines threatened with Legal Action”

Nathan | 17 June, 2007 at 3:52 pm

Hi Darren - thanks for the link.

We should recognise that all the airlines the BBC spoke to (Jet2, EasyJet, Ryanair and Fly Thomas Cook) have taken steps to sort this out - Ryanair says it has stopped using non-inclusive prices in its advertising and homepage, Easyjet and FTC say they’ll be fully compliant by the end of sumer, and Jet2 is in talks with the OFT about the best way to proceed. So with any luck tough legal action won’t actually be required.

Another point, which I didn’t mention in the post (the cricket was on…), is that these changes aren’t simple - they’ll be an administrative headache and in some cases will require a shift in marketing strategy. None of that’s free or easy, and I’m sure airlines will be thinking about how they can avoid passing any related costs on to customers.

None of that is to excuse the practices the OFT is cracking down on, which personally I don’t think are defensible, but it’s as well to be realistic about what is involved for the suppliers.

One other thing - as you might be aware Abta is working with the OFT to enforce similar rules among tour operators, so if the battle with airlines goes well we might could see a quick resolution there too. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Darren Cronian | 17 June, 2007 at 4:31 pm

Thanks for dropping by Nathan and puttting both points of view across.

To be fair, I don’t think airline are the only culprits for inaccurate pricing, if you want to call it that.

In the past some travel agencies have been guilty of mis-pricing, by adding low prices in the window, or homepage, but when you get in and book, the price is hiked up with the add-ons, taxes etc.

Jacky | 21 June, 2007 at 11:20 pm

Ryanair have started to add that the fares include taxes on their ads. I saw an ad in paper today and it said flights from 19p then in tiny unreadable writing, includes airport duty etc.

Darren Cronian | 22 June, 2007 at 1:22 am

Well it’s good that they are starting to listen to OFT.

I’ll keep my eyes open in the newspapers and on the internet over the coming week and report back with my findings.

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