Do Ryanair's 'Advertised Prices' Comply with Office of Fair Trading Guidelines?

Question: Do Ryanair's 'Advertised Prices' Comply with Office of Fair Trading Guidelines?

This is the full question I sent to Ryanair:

"When Ryanair closed down its site for a few days in February 2008 to step in line with Office of Fair Trading guidelines, you were supposed to publish all taxes and fees in your "advertised price". However, the first price shown on your website still shows the price without fees and taxes. Do you feel that the changes you made have fully - in the spirit and the letter of the ruling - complied with the OFT's request?

Answer: Head of Communications at Ryanair, Stephen McNamara, was kind enough to respond with the following: "Ryanair’s website is fully compliant with all EU legislation and our home page only advertises our promotion fares which are inclusive of taxes and charges. When a passenger enters a desired travel itinerary into our search engine they are presented with a page which clearly presents them with the total cost of their flight – this pro-consumer page fully breaks down the cost of the fare and all mandatory taxes and charges. The screen grab you sent (see above) clearly shows this box on the bottom right hand side of the screen."

My Response

The screenshot I sent from Ryanair's site shows the prices of seven flights - only one of which (highlighted in green) is clearly presented with the total cost of the flight (also shown without the taxes in fees - highlighted in yellow). The other six fares (highlighted in red) are advertised without their taxes and fares included.

Is Ryanair unique in this practice? Not quite.

• easyJet, Germanwings, Vueling, clickair, Thomson, Wizz Air, British Airways and Iberia all clearly show all fares on the page with taxes included.
• BMI Baby, Monarch and Air Berlin do the same as Ryanair.

But they are in a minority. It is difficult to understand why Ryanair insist on splitting up the fares like this when consumers would be less likely to be confused if they followed the lead of the majority of other airlines.

Read the next question, on Ryanair's Web Check-In Fee, or see all of my Questions to Ryanair.