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Airlines dispute tax move

AIRLINES have hit back at Trading Standards’ attempts to
force them to end the practice of advertising flight prices
exclusive of taxes on their websites.

Trading Standards has been joined by the Advertising Standards
Agency, the Office of Fair Trading, the Air Transport Users Council
and the Local Authorities Co-ordination of Regulatory Services in
producing a joint guidance paper on airlines’ legal
obligations (Travel Weekly August 6).

The group wants airlines to display the total cost of flights,
inclusive of taxes, in their headline website advertisements.

But carriers have insisted they are doing nothing wrong and that
most consumers know tax will be added to the advertised price.

A Ryanair spokesman said: “Trading Standards’ time would
be better spent fighting the anti-consumer rip-off of British
Airways’ ever increasing fuel surcharges.” The spokesman
added it was “nonsense” consumers believe they are being misled and
said the airline would continue the practice of separating the
charges.

Trading Standards views Ryanair as the biggest culprit with its
numerous ‘99p seats’ sales and ‘one million
seats’ giveaways.

EasyJet also insisted it had never misled its customers and
claimed its pricing is transparent.

However, an EasyJet spokeswoman claimed it would be happy to
comply with Trading Standards’ rules as long as they applied
to all carriers.

The spokeswoman said: “Ryanair is not a UK-registered airline so
it wouldn’t have to comply with the rules on prices
advertised on its own website. This isn’t fair, so any rules
would need to apply to all airlines operating to and from the
UK.”

BA said it discloses the additional taxes and charges on its
initial booking page.

Trading Standards lead officer for travel Bruce Treloar welcomed
airlines’ reaction. “They haven’t dismissed it out of
hand and we’re hopeful of working with them without having to
litigate.”

Trading Standards has already forced airlines to advertise
tax-inclusive prices on billboard, television, radio and newspaper
advertising.

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