The new Consumer Rights Directive adopted by Europe’s Council of Ministers this week does rather more than herald a Europe-wide ban on pre-ticked boxes on websites, albeit this was the angle universally picked up by the media yesterday.
I have no problem with pre-ticked boxes disappearing – indeed, I thought the Office for Fair Trading already required this. I don’t have too many problems with other changes listed among the “top 10 benefits” of the new directive either. But I reckon some people in the aviation industry will – not least Michael O’Leary.
The tick boxes the industry can live with. However, one or two of the 10 measures highlighted by the European Commission could raise the blood pressure while – dare I say it – high-street agents and traditional tour operators may be barely able to contain a grin.
All the measures apply to “distance purchases”, i.e. online or by phone. The most troublesome would have been the article giving consumers 14 days to change their mind and withdraw from a purchase, but package travel and passenger transport are explicitly excluded from this. I’m grateful to Sean Tipton of Abta and to Andy Cooper of Thomas Cook for pointing this out because you would not know it from the EC notices on the subject, and the directive itself runs to 93 pages.
However, other articles in the directive do apply to online travel sales. Article 22 relates to additional payments and is designed, says the EC, to ensure “increased price transparency”. It requires traders “to disclose the total cost of the product or service, as well as any extra fees”. This could take Ryanair into realms it has not previously considered.
The Irish carrier may find it a challenge to stay on the right side of another aspect of the directive, the requirement to “eliminate surcharges for the use of credit cards and hotlines” (Article 19).
Ryanair’s credit and debit card fees are the stuff of legend, but it isn’t the only offender – such charges can be found across the board. I paid £8 to make a debit card booking with easyJet this very morning. Not for much longer, says the EU: “Traders will not be able to charge consumers more for paying by credit card (or other means of payment) than what it actually costs the trader to offer such means of payment.”
Similar rules will apply to phone lines, which may cramp the style of businesses charging premium rates for customer service calls. “Traders who operate telephone hotlines allowing the consumer to contact them in relation to the contract will not be able to charge more than the basic phone rate.”
It is important to stress these are not proposals. They were formally adopted by European ministers this week and will apply across the EU. The Consumer Rights Directive is due to be published by the end of this year, from which point member states will have two years to implement it.
The rules must be incorporated in national law before the end of 2013 “and will be applied in all member states at the latest . . . by mid-2014”. So only 30-odd more months of card-charge robbery. Is that clear Michael? Who knows, the financial crisis may even be over by then.
I do look forward to Ryanair’s next press conference.