Test-Achats/Aankoop sues bru.air, Ryanair and easyJet

[sn26567]

The Belgian consumers association Test-Achats/Test-Aankoop sues Brussels Airlines, Ryanair and easyJet to ask the airlines to stop abusive clauses in their contracts with passengers. Similarly the French association Que Choisir and the Portuguese Deco are sueing respectively Air France et TAP in addition to Ryanair et easyJet.

"Passengers are confronted with unilateral, equivocal and unbalanced clauses with regard to the responsibility of the airlines, their information obligations, non-reimbursable tickets, vague pricing, baggage transportation costs, possible refuse of transport, compulsory utilisation of all the coupons of a ticket, etc.", says Test-Achats/Test-Aankoop.

After many warnings, the association has finally sued three airlines and asks the court for "a cessation of the utilisation of the clauses within a period of 2 months, under a penalty of 25,000 euros per day".

[regi]

This should be applied on booking sites as well. Just did some excercises and suddenly the basic price increased with all kind of goodies which I had not appointed. I felt cheated. It even got worse: trying to get rid off the goodies made my booking invalid. Forgot the site, I think it was bookings.com
So be aware and don't give in.
Thank you Test Aankoop to take initiative. But it should not have been Test Aankoop , it should have been every European country where these airlines fly to that should sue them seperately in each country for the same crime. Yes, it is a crime now.

[legfontosabb]

FYI, the same goes for TAP and Air France in their respective countires (see http://www.web-libre.org/breves/ufc,5416.html in French)

But what exactly are we talking about?

According to what I found on the web, Test-Achats wants these airlines to ...

1 - ... stop issuing tickets that are non-refundable and non-transferrable.

Do they realize that if that happens, not only tickets will be much more expensive, but also there is a risk to give birth to a "black market" of re-sellers who will buy the cheapest tickets and re-sell them at a higher price (just by changing the name) ?

2 - ...take responsiblity for hotel bookings made through their website.

I'm not entirely sure but aren't the hotels offers on most airline websites just links towards other websites like expedia and others? I believe the reason is that airlines don't offer a TO licence; therefore thay are not allowed to sell package holidays or hotel nights for example. So why would they take responsibility themselves? In that case should Le Soir or De Standaard take responsibility for the hotel bookings made through their website?

3... allow passengers to use their second coupon event though the first one has not been used

That's the classic exemple of the guy who buys a BRU-CDG-FIH ticket for example (sometimes cheaper than CDG-FIH only) and decides to not take the BRU-CDG train (it it was a flight, the example would be valid also) but to go directly to Paris by car for the long-haul flight. Because he has not used his first coupon (BRU-CDG), his entire trip is cancelled and he has to buy a new ticket.... Indeed hard to understand!

correct me if I'm wrong but I believe this is a consequence of the segmentisation of the markets. In this example, AF sells a cheaper tciket in the Belgian market to compete againt SN (and others). But if the guy lives in Paris and is allowed to buy that cheap ticket without taking the BRU-CDG train, the whole strategy is a flop. Do you know if there is any other reason for this? Is it really illegal to do this?

4... stop the obligation to re-confirm return

I've never re-confirmed return and never encountered any problem... Where does this come from? Is it a pretoection airlines use when they overbook so that they can refuse some passengers without compensation? Or is there another reason why they ask this?

In my opinion, though there might be some valid pointq in the claim, Test-Achats/Test-Aankoop is going way too far and does not really know what they are talking about (expecially for point 1 and 2). Are they trying to make people forget how they pushed Kaupthing not so long ago?

[SN1203]

Thank you Test Aankoop to take initiative.

Umm... yes, but only to a certain extent.

Test Aankoop clearly lacks any aviation expertise, otherwise they wouldn't come up with f.e. the remarks where 'legfontosabb' commented on already.

1 - ... stop issuing tickets that are non-refundable and non-transferrable.

Do they realize that if that happens, not only tickets will be much more expensive

Correct - offering promotional fares with less flexibility is 'standard' in the aviation industry. You want a cheap fare? No problem, you can book it (depending on the availability) and once you've purchased this cheap fare, the seat on the plane is yours, but don't expect any additional perks.

Thanks to the different levels of flexibility, airlines can offer an attractive product to both the price sensitive passengers (who want the cheapest fare without flexibility, knowing that if they can't use their ticket they'll have to throw it away) and the time sensitive passengers (who can book a more expensive fare, that allows him/her to change the booking at all times, and for the most flexible fares even without a rebooking fee). Brussels Airlines has four different Economy Class fares: a) promotional b.light fares: the cheapest fares without any flexibility; b) b.light fares with limited flexibility: a bit more expensive than the promotional b.light fares but you can change for a fee; c) the cheapest b.flex fares: a flexible fare that you can change for free. If your original booking class is not available anymore, you have to upgrade to the first available b.flex booking class and d) fully flexible b.flex: can be changed at all times without any additional fees or upgrades to the next available booking class.

3... allow passengers to use their second coupon event though the first one has not been used

Again this is a very normal thing in the aviation industry. If you're no-show on the first leg of your itinerary, the whole itinerary get's cancelled. The fact that Test Aankoop doesn't seem to understand this says more about them than about the airlines. It is not like a BRU-FRA-JFK booking can just be split into two different bookings for BRU-FRA and FRA-JFK. If you're leaving from Belgium and you want to go to JFK while you can't use your BRU-FRA, you can always book a FRA-JFK return without the feeder flight to FRA.

4... stop the obligation to re-confirm return

Don't know where Test Aankoop got this from, as this is certainly not widespread. Ryanair and Easyjet never ask for confirmation of your return flight. Same for Brussels Airlines, except for Africa if I'm not mistaken. Again I don't see the problem.

[b720]

check out Brussels airlines newest promotion: 25% off european fares till sunday 24th may.. the only snag is that in very little print, after 2 footnotes one discovers that it is actually 25% on basic fare only!!! which means that the actual discount is no more than 8 or 10%.. Someone should stop them from misleading and lying to their clients...

[SN1203]

check out Brussels airlines newest promotion: 25% off european fares till sunday 24th may.. the only snag is that in very little print, after 2 footnotes one discovers that it is actually 25% on basic fare only!!! which means that the actual discount is no more than 8 or 10%.. Someone should stop them from misleading and lying to their clients...

b720, please... do you expect a 25% discount on the airport taxes, that have to be paid to the airport authorities by Brussels Airlines anyway?

Kind of logic it only applies to the base fare, no?

[Airbus330lover]

1 - ... stop issuing tickets that are non-refundable and non-transferrable.

Do they realize that if that happens, not only tickets will be much more expensive, but also there is a risk to give birth to a "black market" of re-sellers who will buy the cheapest tickets and re-sell them at a higher price (just by changing the name) ?

It's just what happened with TGV in France.
The lower prices needs to be reserved on the web site 3 months before departure ! A 0h02 in the night... sold out.... (for the summer days....)
And you can find the tickets later on e-bay with a margin of 30%.....