People buying airline tickets online being swindled by websites

In a shocking finding, aviation regulators of the European Union have found that websites selling airline tickets are misleading 1 in 3 European travellers.

An industry-wide survey conducted by the European Union’s Consumer Protection Commission, based in Brussels, revealed that over a third of airline websites and travel agency websites “displayed misleading advertising or other unfair practices. Consumers are being ripped off, misled and confused by these websites.”

The European Union’s Consumer Protection Commission has promised to take action against offending companies “unless they clean up their sales and marketing practices,” the website timesonline.co.uk has reported.

The survey that covered over 100 websites in 13 European countries found that 1 in 3 broke the law by concealing additional charges or misleading the public with promotional offers that were unobtainable.

Meglena Kuneva, European Union’s Consumer Protection Commissioner, was quoted by timesonline.co.uk as saying: “The offending airlines and travel companies could have their websites shut down if they failed to improve. It is unacceptable that 1 in 3 consumers going to book a plane ticket online is being ripped off or mislead and confused. My message to the aviation industry is clear: act now or we will act.”

The Consumer Protection Commission is taking enforcement action against 137 websites out of a total of 386 websites, which were monitored in the investigation conducted in 13 European countries.

The erring websites that belong to 80 companies have been given time till May 1, 2009, to make improvements or face proceedings by national authorities that could lead to fines and websites being shut down.

For legal reasons, the Commission did not disclose the companies against which it had taken enforcement procedures. However, the Swedish and Norwegian authorities named several offenders, including Austrian Airlines (the flag carrier airline of Austria, headquartered in Vienna,) the Finnish airline Blue 1 and Ryanair (an Irish airline headquartered in Dublin).

A spokesman for the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) in the United Kingdom said the regulator had not taken part in the Consumer Protection Commission’s investigation as the OFT had recently taken enforcement action against airlines in its own investigation into misleading online pricing.

According to reports in the British media, the Office of Fair Trading had taken action against Ryanair after it was given a warning in February 2007.

The OFT said that, six months later, it had forced 13 airlines to change their websites to include all-fixed, non-optional costs in the prices published on their online booking sites. The 13 airlines included easyJet, bmibaby, Flybe, Thomsonfly, flythomascook, Monarch, Jet2, Globespan, Wizz Air, Sky Europe, Germanwings, Ryanair, and Aer Lingus

Airlines across the world depend heavily on websites, and about 700 million passenger book through websites a year.

Reports say that problems with “bad” websites exist across the whole of the airline industry, including tour operators. Most of the offences relate to misleading pricing, such as a Ryanair website in Norway which cheated customers into paying NK 50 (£5) for priority boarding by including it as a pre-chosen option on its booking form, timesonline.co.uk said.

Another Norwegian website for Austrian Airlines incorporated a NK100 booking fee that was not included in the website’s advertisement.

Included in the “bad” practices are the addition of extra charges that were not included in advertisements, such as “airport charges,” booking fees or charges related to credit card payments, priority booking, luggage or fuel. While these cases accounted for 58% of the offending websites, 49% related to pre-checked boxes on booking forms which required travellers to expressly decline a service in order to avoid extra payment.