ASA Adjudication on Ryanair Ltd

Ad

A national press ad, for Ryanair, stated "JANUARY SALE 2 MILLION SEATS FROM £10 ONE WAY, TAXES & CHARGES INCLUDED TRAVEL MONDAY - SUNDAY ...".

Issue

The complainant, who attempted to purchase a flight in the sale but could not find any discounted flights for travel on Fridays or Sundays, challenged the claim "TRAVEL MONDAY - SUNDAY ...".

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Ryanair asserted that flights had been available for travel on Fridays and Sundays. They said the promotional period had run from Friday 30 November to Monday 3 December 2007 and thousands of people had booked flights for £10 during that period. They sent two booking forms for customers which showed they had both booked flights for travel on Friday and Sunday for £10 each way; Ryanair argued those forms proved flights were available on Fridays and Sundays.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted Ryanair's arguments. We asked them to send us details of the percentage of the £10 flights that were for travel on Fridays and Sundays; we were concerned by Ryanair's refusal to supply that information. We considered that, in order to substantiate the claim "FROM £10 ... TRAVEL MONDAY - SUNDAY ...", Ryanair needed to demonstrate that  £10 flights were available for travel on all the quoted days in sufficient quantities to ensure a reasonable prospect of readers obtaining them. We considered that the details of the two booking forms provided were not sufficient evidence to show that and concluded that the ad was misleading.

We noted we had formally upheld complaints that Ryanair ads were misleading on eight other occasions in the past two years.  The issues in those cases included misleading and denigratory claims about competitors, the omission of significant conditions and not making clear a restriction on days of travel.  We were extremely concerned that Ryanair had again breached the Codes on the grounds of misleadingness and had refused to supply the information we had requested.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 34.1 (Sales Promotion rules - Significant conditions for promotions).

Action

We told Ryanair to ensure flights were available in sufficient quantities to ensure a reasonable prospect of readers obtaining a flight at the headline price on the advertised days.

Because of Ryanairs unwillingness and apparent inability to comply with the Code rules on misleadingness over the past two years, we referred them to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for the OFT to consider taking appropriate action against Ryanair using the powers available to them.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)