Supervision airline ticket price transparency in effect
Since 1 June last, the Dutch Consumer Authority is authorised to supervise compliance with the regulations concerning prices of single airline tickets. Based on these regulations, sellers of airline tickets are required
- to state the final price. That is the price including all additional costs, such as fees and surcharges that are charged by default;
- to specify all elements of which the price is constituted;
- to mention all applicable terms and conditions;
- to allow the consumer to select additional services via 'opt in', such as travel insurance or payment via credit card, and hence not via little boxes checked in advance.
These regulations ensue from the European regulation 1008/2008, which has now been transposed in the Dutch Consumer Protection Enforcement Act, for which the Dutch Consumer Authority has been designated as the supervisory authority.
Consumer protection
The consumer is better protected due to these regulations, because sellers of airline tickets are required to be more transparent about the costs. In order to inform consumers about their rights, the Dutch Consumer Authority has posted additional information on the ConsuWijzer website.
In preparation to its new task, the Dutch Consumer Authority has inventoried the significant issues. This has engendered the conclusion that the regulations are not yet sufficiently being complied with. The most prevalent issues were the options checked in advance and inadequate specification of the price.
The Dutch Consumer Authority calls on consumers to submit their complaints in this respect to ConsuWijzer. This will provide the supervisory authority with an even clearer picture of what the largest problems are and will allow the authority to focus its supervision on those problems. In doing so, the authority is closely cooperating with other supervisory authorities at a European level.