TALLINN — For the second time this year airBaltic has found itself in hot water with consumer regulation authorities, who are slamming the way pricing is displayed the airline’s website when purchasing tickets. The company says the regulations don’t make sense.
Estonia’s Consumer Protection Board (CPB) ruled that the Latvian airline has continued to ignore the requirements that the consumer has the right to know the final price of a service including taxes before paying, in violation of both national and European Union law.
Regarding taxes, the company said that not all consumers lived in the European Union and therefore they didn’t have to conform to EU policy.
“airBaltic is the largest European Union carrier for flights to the Commonwealth of Independent States countries. Consequently, airBaltic.com caters for EU citizens and customers outside the EU, for example travelers flying from Geneva via Riga to Tbilisi or Moscow via Riga to Dubai. Is it fair then that the EU dictates shopping conditions for customers that neither start or finish their journey within the EU?” Janis Vanags, airBaltic’s Vice President for Corporate Communications told Baltic Reports.
“The EU-dictated rules meant that the bendy cucumber (and other “wonky” fruit and vegetables) were banned in shops for years, and made their comeback only July this year. What the EU wants is not always what the customer wants,” he added.
The CPB stated that consumers have to be able to compare the prices of different aviation firms and thus the prices have to be at every moment public and include also all taxes.
CPB director general Andres Sooniste said that not revealing the final price of a service is using unfair trading practices which cause unfair competition and give the consumer misleading or inadequate information about the price of services.
- airBaltic was blacklisted by the European Commission earlier this year for the ticket sales policy on its website.
On the blacklist
airBaltic was blacklisted earlier this year by the European Commission after it had a crackdown on websites that forced consumers to deselect items that they didn’t want such as insurance and meals.
“Low cost is an important argument for airBaltic customer. And so is the speed of booking. With tens of products available, it is very important to ensure that customers can book fast,” Vanags said. “For that reason airBaltic has carefully chosen several products that are most frequently selected by customers to make their booking process more convenient.”
Vanags said intelligent consumers would enjoy their site.
“Furthermore, the Internet as a sales channel is developing very fast, and the consumers are intelligent to use its benefits,” he said.
The Latvia’s Consumer Protection Board ruled that airBaltic must stop violating the law but the latter has disputed the decisions in court.
