A Lot of European Airline Websites Proved to be Misleading

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Published by abc on November 14th, 2007 in ,

european_arline_websites_misleadingAccording to the study performed by the European Commission, as many as 200 websites of the European airlines provide misleading information to the consumer.

 

The report states that the websites of the European airline companies do not show taxes and charges and in addition they do not inform clearly about the lowest prices.

 

The European Commission did not disclose any names, thus giving the airline companies a chance to improve their websites and services.

 

It is worth mentioning that in October 2007 a Spanish watchdog mentioned that it had spotted misleading information on 7 websites, these include Ryanair.

 

The European Commission is in power to close in 2008 the airline companies in case they fail to improve their services.

 

A total of 15 different national airline authorities throughout the European Union took part in the exercise that lasted one weekend. The exercise included surfing through 400 websites. After that the authorities found that half of the websites they surfed through did not were not meet the terms of the EU law.

 

Most common infringements included:

  1. Prices included in the site's home page did not include taxes and charges.
  2. The so-called "free" flights turned out to be not free.
  3. Obligatory purchase of insurance, which is being attached to an offer.

Throughout the study performed in October, the Spain's consumer rights watchdog revealed that 7 out of 12 websites of European airline companies violated in one way or another the EU law. Among such companies there are: Ryanair, Vueling, Iberia and Spainair.

 

Actions against 13 airlines were already taken by the UK's Office of Fair Trading for such faults as: leaving taxes, fuel fees, as well as other charges off their advertised prices.

 

The worst offenders, according to the European Commission, were the websites of the Belgian airlines. The figure is frightening: 46 out of 48 Belgian websites registered EU law breaking regarding consumer guidelines.

 

The best country to have all of its airlines loyal to their customers was Austria. None of the 20 airline companies' websites violated the EU law and thus none has been judged to be misleading.

 

 

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