ASA Adjudication on Deutsche Lufthansa AG

Ad

An online promotion for flights to Berlin "from £49".

Issue

The complainant challenged the availability of flights for £49.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Lufthansa German Airlines (Lufthansa) said they had sold a significant number of seats at the offer starting price. They sent a summary of seats at the offer price that were available or had been booked at the offer price for each month from April to December 2009 for the London to Berlin route. They said the data was a snapshot of availability on 3 April, around the time the complainant maintained that he had attempted to book flights. Lufthansa pointed out that, although they had sold most of the available seats at the offer price there was still availability at that price in each of the months of the promotion. They said the data showed that, at the start of the promotion, more than 10% of seats were available at the offer price.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted the data provided by Lufthansa showed the number of seats originally available at the offer price of £49 was greater than 10% of the total number of seats in economy class. Although we also noted Lufthansa had sold most of the seats at the offer price, we noted there were still some seats available at the offer price on 3 April. Because we considered that Lufthansa had demonstrated that a significant number of seats were available at the offer price at the time the promotion started, we concluded that the ad did not breach the Code.

We investigated the promotion under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness), 15.4 (Prices), 16.4 (Availability of products), 27.4 (Sales Promotions), 30.1 and 30.2 (Availability) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)