Advertising by Flybe promoting flights where customers ‘just pay taxes and charges’ has been banned by the advertising watchdog as misleading.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint against the airline after a consumer complained that they could not obtain a fare-free flights from Southampton to Belfast within the stated travel period.
The website promotion urged people to book by June 25 to take advantage of the offer covering flights between July 22 and December 14.
Making its ruling the ASA said: “We considered that the fact that only some flights on some routes contained seats at the promotional price was material information which should have been made clear to consumers in a prominent position on both pages of the website.
“Because it was not, we concluded that the claims to offer flights for the cost of taxes and charges only were misleading.“
Flybe argued that more than 10% of seats on the Southampton-Belfast route were included in the offer with availability weighted towards the autumn and winter.
The airline disagreed that it should be required to overtly state that the offer was available only on selected flights.
But it said it was willing to include that information in the terms and conditions listed on the website for future campaigns.