The European Commission has announced to investigate add-on charges to cheap flight tickets. As a consequence of the inquiry, European rules on flight pricing may change.
Since the introduction of online ticket selling and low cost airlines, many airlines have been advertising their flight prices without mentioning additional costs such as taxes, luggage charges and credit card fees. In many cases, consumers are confronted with the real price of the product only at the final stages of the booking process. Especially low-cost airlines like Ryanair and Easyjet are notorious for these practices.
According to Article 23 of EU Regulation 1008/2008, airlines are required at all times to state the final price including the applicable air fare or air rate as
well as all applicable taxes, and charges, surcharges and fees which are unavoidable and foreseeable at the time of publication.
The inquiry was announced by the European Commissioner for transport, Siim Kallas, after pressure by Brian Simpson, British MP and chairman of the European Parliament’s transport commission. He had been urging the European Commission to take action.
For more information, check out this article on the Guardian website.
