£4.99 Ryanair flight ruling 'victory for small print'

Airlines were today given the green light to continue advertising flights at less than their full cost on the internet, said trading standards officers.

A jury ruled that a Ryanair website advertisement promoting a “£4.99 one-way flight from London Stansted to Pisa, Italy” was not misleading or illegal because it included the words “excluding tax”.

A senior trading standards officer said the jury’s decision was a “victory for small print” and said the law needed to be changed to ensure that “the price you see is always the price you pay”.

But Ryanair said the decision was an indication of public support for the air industry’s internet advertising policy.

Essex County Council’s trading standards department had prosecuted Ryanair claiming that the “£4.99 to Pisa excluding tax” website advertisement was a breach of the Consumer Protection Act because it did not plainly spell out the full cost of the flight.

But jurors at Chelmsford Crown Court found Ryanair not guilty of “a misleading price indication contrary to Section 20 (1) of the Consumer Protection Act 1987”.

The decision came at the end of a trial lasting more than a week.

The jury found Ryanair guilty of six charges of misleading customers about the cost of flights to various destinations.

But Ryanair said on each of those occasions the fact that the price was exclusive of tax had not been explained because of an error.