Ryanair's Easyjet Complaint Upheld

Ryanair has won a court battle against Easyjet over claims the former was flying passengers to the wrong destination.

The UK's advertising watchdog found that low-cost airline Easyjet 'denigrated' rival Ryanair by suggesting the carrier did not fly passengers to the destinations they had booked.

EasyJet were found to have "misled" by suggesting the airports used by Ryanair were different to the destinations despite each airport being designated by the International Air Transport Association.

EasyJet said they believed that customers were more interested in the actual proximity of airports to their destination cities. They said that they were trying to make the point that easyJet flies to primary airports and Ryanair, in many cases, to secondary airports which are often significantly further away from the city which they serve.

In the report from the Watchdog, a train poster for Easyjet read: "Who loves flying you to the place you actually booked?'. A box underneath headed 'Ryanair' listed: 'Barcelona = Girona, Paris = Beauvais, Milan = Bergamo, Venice = Treviso'. More text in a heart under the heading 'easyJet' read: 'Barcelona = Barcelona, Paris = Paris, Milan = Milan, Venice = Venice."

In their findings, the Watchdog said: "We considered the challenging tone of the headline "Who loves flying you to the place you actually booked?" combined with the implication that Ryanair misled customers and flew them to airports different to the ones to which they had booked was denigratory."

Meanwhile, on Ryanair's website today, the budget flyer has announced that 20,000 passengers have voted for the company's CEO Michael O’Leary and the Easyjet Chief Stelios Haji-Ioannou to settle their differences, over Easyjet’s fares and punctuality, with Sumo bout.

Ryanair said that Mr O'Leary has now sent an invitation to Stelios to join him in Trafalgar Square on St Patrick's Day for a Sumo bout to settle the dispute.

(DW/GK)