The Commission is half way through a major investigation into airline ticket websites and has issued a report on its findings so far. It has conducted follow-up enforcement action with 137 out of 386 of the websites it has surveyed.
"It is unacceptable that one in three consumers going to book a plane ticket online is being ripped off or mislead and confused," said EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva. "This report shows there are serious and persistent problems with ticket sales throughout the airline industry as a whole."
The problems encountered include misleading prices, misleading advertising and unfair practices.
The biggest single problem was the advertising of misleading prices, which occurred in 58% of the problem sites.
"A widely spread practice reported by authorities consists in dividing the final price of an air ticket into different components, using the airfare for advertising purposes and so attracting consumers to a given ticket selling site with what seem cheap flights," said a Commission report on the investigation.
"For the consumers, the final price to pay when actually booking the ticket is generally higher due to a series added charges that vary from so called 'airport charges' to handling fees, booking fees or charges related to credit card payments, priority booking, luggage, fuel etc," it said.
The investigation also found that websites often did not give consumers an indication of how many seats were available at the advertised prices, and what conditions were attached to buying seats at those prices.
The research found that 49% of problem sites contained pre-checked boxes for additional services, such as insurance, something the Commission identified as being a problem with the general terms of the contract.
National consumer protection authorities, which carried out the research in a co-ordinated Commission programme, have taken enforcement action in half of the problem cases, and Kuneva said that half of the problem websites have been corrected already.
"This is very positive – many companies have responded quickly to contacts from national authorities," she said.
Kuneva said that she would endeavour to have the full report available by its deadline of 1st May 2009 on how the sites were complying with European directives on Misleading Advertising and Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts.
