Ryanair allowed to call itself Europe’s No.1 Airline
Staff Writer |
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received 13 complaints from peopel who claimed the ads were misleading in light of the thousands of flights Ryanair cancelled last year.
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The airline had cancelled the flights after errors were made in how their pilots were rostered for work.
TV and radio ads in September and October included voice-overs saying "Discover why more and more people are choosing Europe’s number one airline", and "Discover why we’re Europe’s number one airline."
A poster ad, seen on the London Underground on October 2, also featured the headline claim: "Europe’s No.1 Airline."
Ryanair said the claim “Europe’s number one Airline†was a statement of fact, supported by a third-party statistical report, and therefore not misleading.
They said the claim was based on the most recent International Air Transport Association (IATA) World Air Transport Statistics 2017 report for air travel in 2016, which found that Ryanair was the world’s largest airline for international flights and Europe’s largest airline for international and domestic flights combined.
Ryanair said their recent cancellation of flights did not materially alter the fact. The cancellations affected less than 0.5% of their 129 million customers in 2017. Further, their October 2017 traffic grew by 8% to 11.8 million customers, even when the flight cancellations were included.
Ryanair said the on-screen text “IATA Scheduled passengers carried: 2016†in ad (a) was sufficiently clear to communicate the basis of their claim.
They said ad (b) directed consumers to their website for full details of what the claim was based on. They said due to an oversight the same qualification was not included in ad (c), but they had taken steps to ensure that it did not occur again.
Clearcast said they had approved ad (a) in light of the IATA data. They said the recent cancellations of Ryanair flights was unrelated and would not alter the validity of the “No. 1†claim, as the measured findings of the IATA still stood.
They said while viewers may have formed opinions of the advertiser given the press coverage, that opinion alone was not sufficient to render the claim misleading.
Radiocentre said they cleared ad (b) in light of the IATA data, which confirmed that Ryanair was the number one airline in Europe as it had the highest number of passengers. They said that this was in line with the Committee of Advertising Practice’s guidance on “number 1 claims.â€
They said that the airline’s cancellation of flights should not affect the claim, as listeners would still understand the claim to mean the highest number of passengers. ■