Industry | 2010.03.03
EasyJet flies into trouble with ASA over claims about Ryanair
Ryanair turns to its arch enemy, the Advertising Standards Authority, in battle against easyJet – and wins
Ryanair, the budget airline which so hates the Advertising Standards Authority that it referred to the regulator as "Monty Pythonesque" , has nevertheless turned to the advertising watchdog to get an ad campaign by rival easyJet banned.
The Irish airline, which waged a two-year spat with what it termed the "Absolutely Stupid Asses" over its repeated abuse of advertising rules, has cited those very same codes in its grievance with easyJet.
The source of its ire was easyJet\'s poster campaign that claimed that Ryanair did not fly to airports customers believed they had booked. The strapline on the ad ran: "Who loves flying you to the place you actually booked?". One advert pointed out that a Ryanair flight to Paris actually flew to Beauvais, while a trip to Barcelona meant landing at Girona airport.
The usually thick-skinned Ryanair, which was once so offside with the advertising authorities that it became the subject of an Office of Fair Trading investigation , complained that the ad was misleading and denigratory.
EasyJet said it was trying to make the point that easyJet flies to primary airports and Ryanair, in many cases, services secondary airports that are often significantly further away from the city where people are heading.
The ASA said Ryanair\'s advertising always made it clear where it was flying to and that three of the airports named in the easyJet ad, despite being further away than other options, were officially designated as serving the cities of Paris, Milan and Venice cited in the ad. The ASA agreed with Ryanair and said that easyJet\'s ad campaign was misleading.
"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," the ASA said.
• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.
• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/03/easyjet-ryanair-asa
