A complaint against cheap flights advertised by Jet2.com has been upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority.
The advertising watchdog ruled that an advert promoting £31.99 fares from Leeds/Bradford to Grenoble in May was misleading.
The airline argued the flights were on sale for travel between December 15 and April 13, 2013 and it submitted documentation which showed the number of seats available at that price across the whole travel period.
The ASA said it understood from Jet2.com that over 10% of the overall number of seats during the travel period were available at the advertised ‘from’ price of £31.99.
“We considered that that was a reasonable proportion. However, we noted that over half of the flights had no availability at all at £31.99, and that the flights which did contain seats at that fare did not depart at even intervals,” the ASA ruled.
“We considered that, in the absence of a clear qualification in the ad, the seats available at the ‘from’ fare should have been spread reasonably evenly across the travel period rather than being gathered together in a small number of flights.
“Because they were not, we concluded that the ad was misleading.”
The ASA acted after receiving a complaint that flights at £31.99 could not be obtained.