back to article Airline websites forced to clean up

A European Commission investigation into airline websites has resulted in 115 out of 137 sites making changes so they are less confusing for punters. Tricks like adding extra costs on at the last stages of a transaction, not revealing availability of the best fares and not showing fair contract terms have all been stopped. …

COMMENTS

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  1. TeeCee Gold badge
    Flame

    Crystal ball time.

    "Easyjet and Ryanair were among 36 sites promising to do better in future."

    Five years from now:

    "Ryanair were among 1 site promising to do better in future."

    Let's face it. Their whole business model is based around loading the eyecatching, cheap fare with ripoff charges in the booking process and hoping that the punter can't be arsed to abort the process and bugger off elsewhere. Well, that and treating their customers like either cattle or shit as the mood takes them.

  2. Ewen Bruce
    Happy

    Tell me its not true

    Ryanair? Must do better?

    Some mistake shurely?

  3. SmokeyMcPotHead
    Paris Hilton

    It's all a big scam...

    The whole airline business is one great big scam, this website clean up is merely scratching the surface. Firstly they need to knock all this constantly moving fare price on the head once and for all. So each flight has one price for Economy, one for Upper Economy, one for First Class and so on, so everyone is paying the same price. Secondly much stricter controls need to be placed on economy airlines like Ryanair, who don't seem to know what to get up to next to rip their passengers off. Seriously folks you never know what you'll get caught for so it's probably best to go on a non-budget airline.

    All in all most airlines suck, we never bother to go abroad now, we can't stand the hassle and the over inflated prices.

    The same rules should be applied to train fares as well, I always wondered why our roads were so clogged, then I looked at some train fares.

    Paris because I'm attempting to educate the less wise with my comments.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Ryanair Flambe?

    Shouldn't a Ryanair employee be flaming El Reg and everyone reading this article and the report for saying their site has errors or something wrong with it? Or do they just do that with independent contractors?

  5. Kevin Johnston
    Coat

    Gosh, what a shock

    Was looking to book some flights through Aer Lingus and noticed that the "taxes and charges" were higher than the advertised ticket 'price'. Spoke to the Airline who advised it was all 'government taxes' but unfortunately I had already checked and they accounted for less than half of the added costs, was meant to be passed to someone who could give me more detail but after a while on hold the line went dead. It seems that the only difference between Aer Fungus and Ryanair is reputation.....don't see that difference lasting too long at this rate.

    Who's that dipping into my wallet?

  6. Stu
    Flame

    Ryanair

    According to the Times today, Ryanair are going to only accept online check-in, and will charge you £5 for the privilege of checking in online.

    I thought you weren't allowed to express air fares exclusive of "non-optional" charges any more, so what are they playing at here? Just make every damn flight £10 more expensive and be done with it, bloody charlatans...

  7. Nick Miles

    Ryanair

    Changes that will hopefully highlight the fact that when i recently purchase five 1p flights from Ryan Air, the total cost is actually £550. Including a wonderful £50 charge to pay for the flights.

  8. Dave

    Unexpected Charges

    Hasn't one airline mentioned in your article just decided to charge people 40 Euros to print out a boarding card at the airport?

  9. kevin king
    Thumb Up

    on a budget

    Easyjet and Ryanair what a suprise, I blogged a while back about how they extort money out of people http://www.kking.co.uk/blog/2009/04/flying-on-budget-airline.html and how booking a traditional flight with BMI can save you hundreds. Nice to see the commission thinks the same :-)

  10. Justabloke
    Stop

    Lord

    I stopped using any of these pirates a long time ago having concluded that the (these days quite small) added expense was more than compensated by an allocated seat, being treated as a human being rather than cattle... getting a drink... a bite to eat Oh and not having to then stump up for a 2 hour coach journey to my actual destination, on a coach company usually owned by the same airline.

    Budget Airlines stopped being good value for money a long time ago.

  11. ThinkingOutLoud
    Paris Hilton

    Ryanair/Easyjet, etc.

    Ryanair used to be accessible on the FlightChecker page on www.moneysavingexpert.com until they stopped screen scrapers from finding the cheapest options available.

    My last flight to France cost me over twice as much as the previous one due to new and amended charges - and that includes me forgoing checked luggage, which would have added £30 to the already high bill!

    Salad days are over folks...

    Paris because you'll always spend more than you expect when spending time with her.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One thing they will NOT tell you

    I only found this out last year, if you do not fly for any reason, even if it is a "Non-Refundable Ticket; you can still claim the "tax" back; and as someone mentioned above, the tax can be higher than the actual ticket!!

    I had to cancel a flight from Birmingham to Prague, the flight cost me £184 "Non Refundable", but after pretending they did not understand, and delaying for over a month, the airline finally coughed up £104.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @ It's all a big scam...

    Unfortunately, if that happened the uniform ticket prices will be so high, it wont be viable for the masses not to mention the airlines (which may not be such a bad thing actually).

    No I dont work for any airline.

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