The Air Transport Users’ Council has made a formal complaint to the Office of Fair Trading against scheduled airlines’ conditions of carriage.
We believe the contract for the purchase of an air ticket is strongly biased in favour of the carrier for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the airline merely has to use its ‘best endeavours’ to fulfil the agreement. Airlines can and do alter schedules, cancel flights and substitute alternative carriers at will. Yet the conditions attached to most tickets prevent the traveller from changing flights, receiving a refund or substituting an alternative traveller.
Another problem is that the ticket must be used by the named passenger, so it is worthless to anyone else. But if it is lost, the passenger must indemnify the airline just in case its systems fail to prevent fraudulent use.
The traveller must also be at the check-in desk by the specified time but it is the airline that controls the length of the queue.
When else are customers required to reconfirm with the supplier halfway through the contract, under threat of losing their money, that they still want the service that they have contracted? What other industry incorporates a condition into the contract that obliges the customer to use all the services that they have paid for?
So how does the International Air Transport Association defend retaining such provisions? It claims that it only recommends these model Conditions of Carriage.
True, but the law is quite clear, to recommend unfair contract terms is itself an offence.
IATA also argues that the Conditions of Carriage provide worldwide uniformity in support of interlining and that non-European carriers will not accept more liberal conditions. Possibly, but harmonisation cannot justify allowing Third World airlines to determine the level of protection to be given to European consumers. Standards should be levelled up, not down.
IATA claims it has consulted consumers and has redrafted their recommended Conditions of Carriage. Our complaint is against the revised conditions which, despite protracted negotiations, are no fairer than the ones they replaced.
IATA also says that a study carried out for the European Commission found the conditions to be fair. In fact, the Commission has indicated to IATA that many of the conditions are not only unfair, they are unlawful.
Travel agents and tour organisers give travellers a fair deal and their customers are entitled to the same from airlines.
That is why, as a last resort, we have turned to the OFT to enforce the law.
Philip Martin is director-general of the Air Transport Users’ Council