Ryanair and ASA report each other to OFT
04.04.08
Ryanair has submitted a formal complaint to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) over what it is alleges are ‘unfair procedures, bias and factually untrue rulings’ made by the UK’s advertising watchdog the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). In what appears to be a tit-for-tat situation, the action was taken after the ASA issued a letter to the airline warning them that they were to be taken to the OFT.
Ryanair’s grievances relate to action taken by the ASA over seven of Ryanair’s adverts over the past two years. The budget airline claims that ASA ‘has demonstrated a repeated lack of independence, impartiality or fairness where Ryanair is concerned by making factually inaccurate and untrue findings in response (in some cases) to totally baseless and unsubstantiated alleged complaints’.
It has published its complete correspondence with the ASA over this latest complaint - over a two million seat offer apparently only taken up by two customers - to highlight a number of complaints which include the advertising body setting impossible deadlines, moving goalposts and refusing, ignoring and excluding evidence.
Ryanair’s Head of Communications, Peter Sherrard, said: ‘As this published correspondence shows, the ASA had abandoned any attempt at independence or impartiality when ruling on Ryanair’s adverts. In this latest ruling the ASA has denied Ryanair fair procedures, has ignored Ryanair’s evidence and it has pursued a complaint which has no evidential basis whatsoever. This clearly confirms the ASA’s bias, and blind determination to rule against Ryanair’s adverts.'
‘We are calling on the OFT to examine this catalogue of mal-administration, bias and incompetence by the ASA, and require in future that the ASA rules on Ryanair’s adverts in an independent, impartial, fair and reasonable manner.’
An ASA spokesperson said that it has referred Ryanair to the OFT for ‘persistent failure to abide by the Code of Advertising Practice (CAP)’. The ASA will publish details of its referral next week but it is understood the action follows a series of adjudications by the ASA that have found against Ryanair.
The spokesperson added: ‘Within the regulatory system there is the backstop of passing cases to the OFT when companies regularly break our codes. This is not something we do lightly, but Ryanair consistently refuses to abide by ASA rules and has continued to mislead consumers over the years. It has a poor compliance record and consistently fails to act on ASA rulings.'
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