Manufacturing Industry

ASA adjudications for November 2000: airline industry

Airline Industry Information, Nov 8, 2000

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority has this month ruled on the following complaints related to the airline industry.

Go, the low-cost British Airways subsidiary, lodged official objections to two advertisements placed by rival carrier easyJet. In the first, a regional press advertisement claimed, 'we will always refund the full cost of your fare if your flight is delayed for 4 hours or more.' Go challenged this policy, citing two dates when flights were delayed because of air traffic control problems. easyJet maintained that the ad referred to delayed flights, and on the two days in question the flights had been cancelled. The Authority considered that customers could distinguish between a delay and a cancellation and did not uphold the complaint.

The second easyJet advertisement was placed in the national press and used the strapline 'the web's favourite airline'. This claim was challenged by Go, who believed that it sold at least an equal percentage of its seats via the Internet. In response, easyJet said that the word 'favourite' was ambiguous and could be associated with criteria other than selling the most tickets online. Whilst arguing that the use of the word need not be justified, easyJet nonetheless put forward several reasons why it believed it could lay claim to being the 'favourite', for example that it was the first UK airline to enable customers to buy tickets over the Internet and to discount all seats sold online. easyJet noted that the claim only appeared in its ads in the UK and Europe because domestic airlines in the US might sell more seats via the Internet. The Authority accepted easyJet's arguments and did not uphold the complaint.

The ASA received a complaint about a trade magazine advertisement placed by Landround Marketing Ltd for a staff incentive scheme for flights. The ad claimed, 'Fly the world for free!' but the complainant found that consumers who booked flights had to pay airport taxes. The advertiser noted that it did not sell flights, but vouchers, and these were not available to the general public. All participants in the scheme received full terms and conditions which stated the requirement to pay taxes, Landround Marketing said. However the ASA said that scheme users could not fly for free, as indicated, and ruled that the claim was therefore misleading. The Authority further asked the advertisers to make it clear in future ads that consumers using the vouchers had to pay airport taxes.

A national press advertisement from Virgin Atlantic Airways listed a selection of fares between the UK and United States including 'New York from GBP185 rtn' and 'Miami from GBP211 rtn' and claimed the fares were valid between 15 September 2000 and 31 March 2001, subject to availability and certain blackout dates. The complainant, who wanted to travel to Miami on 5 October and return on 29 November, challenged the availability of the tickets at the advertised prices after being told that the advertised fare of GBP211 was for flights taken in November only. In response, Virgin Atlantic said that fare levels changed according to the season and market conditions and that the sample fares were prefixed with a 'from' to show that the price shown was merely the lowest fare available. The carrier also pointed out a note in the smallprint stating, 'Discounts apply to the lowest published fare to qualifying destinations'. The ASA judged that the ad nevertheless inferred that seats were available for the advertised price throughout the offer period and because they were not, the ad was misleading. The complaint was upheld.

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