ASA Adjudication on Flybe Ltd

Ad

A regional press ad, for Flybe, stated "Left stranded by Thomsonfly? Fly with Flybe to Amsterdam this Winter!"

Issue

Thomsonfly Ltd challenged whether the claim "Left stranded by Thomsonfly? Fly with Flybe ..." was misleading and denigratory, because it implied consumers flying with Thomsonfly risked being left stranded at airports because of flight cancellations.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Flybe said they understood that Thomsonfly were stopping their Bournemouth to Amsterdam route at the end of October 2007.  They explained that they had sought to reassure passengers from Bournemouth, who wanted to fly to Amsterdam, that they could still get there by travelling with Flybe from Southampton.

Flybe said they had no plans to repeat the ad.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted Flybe said they had merely sought to communicate that, although Thomsonfly's Bournemouth to Amsterdam route had been cancelled, readers could still fly to Amsterdam from Southampton with Flybe.  We considered, however, that the ad did not make that clear.  We therefore considered that readers were likely to infer from the claim "Left stranded by Thomsonfly" that Thomsonfly would let their customers down by refusing to honour bookings or by leaving people stranded because of flight cancellations.  As that inference was unsupported by evidence, we concluded that the ad could mislead and was denigratory to the Thomsonfly brand.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 20.1 (Denigration and unfair advantage).

Action

We told Flybe not to use the approach again and advised them to contact the CAP Copy Advice team for help with future ads.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)