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.