Internet checked for misleading details on flight tickets

The European Commission, through the Consumer Protection Network, carried out a joint internet sweep at the end of last month to flag suspicious sites for further scrutiny and, if need be, take follow-up action, the government said yesterday.

By using internet search engines, such as Google, authorities from all European member states had the task to check air ticket selling sites for any misleading practice.

Locally, the exercise was carried out by the Consumer and Competition Division in conjunction with the European Consumer Centre, both within the Ministry for Competitiveness and Communications.

During this exercise, two sites were flagged for misleading information.

Both sites had an advert promoting thousands, even millions, of free seats but when checked, it resulted that there were no free seats available even though the sweeper tried numerous dates.

When available flights were found, none of these were completely free of charge.

In the week when this exercise was carried out, more than 400 websites were checked by the authorities all over Europe.

Preliminary calculation indicates that about half of the checked sites were flagged for follow-up actions and just short of 20 per cent are eligible for enforcement actions by the Consumer Protection Network.

The Commission announced that this exercise will be followed by appropriate enforcement actions.

The main purpose of this sweep exercise was to identify practices infringing national consumer protection law, notably misleading information and unfair contract terms. For instance, it is against the law not to give clear indication on the final price. Sites selling air tickets online should indicate all elements that make up the final price such as fees and taxes.

The conditions of the offer should also be clearly indicated on the website where the offer is advertised, like, for instance, any limitation of seats available at a particular tariff.

Prices are often used to lure consumers into trying to book a flight only to find out that there is no availability on the preferred date and time, or else that the price is higher or the conditions of the offer are different from the advertising message.

General contract terms also need to be clearly indicated, easily accessible and fair.