EU critical of airlines for misleading website fares

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The EU has issued a public reprimand to Emirates, Turkish Airlines and Royal Air Maroc – as well as six other carriers – for misleading visitors to their websites about airfares.

USA Today reported that the EU “black list”, on which Aeroflot, Northwest Airlines and Olympic Airlines also appear, was issued following an 18-month study of unfair practices and misleading online adverts on the websites of 137 airlines in 15 EU countries and Norway.

Many complaints were related to deceptive “headline” pricing, in which hidden extra costs are not revealed.

In order to check compliance with EU rules that protect consumers, airline websites were rated using a 14-point checklist, which looked to see if items such as charges, fees and taxes were included in featured fares, and if extra costs were included on an opt-in or opt-out basis.

One hundred-fifteen offending websites have agreed to comply with the EU rules, but nine others have either responded inadequately or ignored the EU communication altogether, according to Meglena Kuneva, the EU’s consumer protection commissioner.

“This is a signal that they do not care about their customers,” Kuneva commented.

Officials are pointing out, however, that 52 of 67 airlines have been given a “clean bill of health”, or have made a commitment to promptly addressing the issues that were raised.

This list includes previous offenders such as Austrian Airlines and Ryanair.

“This first pan-European enforcement investigation has shown it has real teeth and can deliver,” the commissioner added.

Thanks to www.travelmole.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.

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