The Irish Airline Was Prohibited From Comparing Itself With The Trains While Advertising

Advertising Standards Authority, ASA did not allow the low-budget Irish airline Ryanair to use the affirmation that its airplanes are faster than Eurostar trains while advertising what is said in the department report. Ryanair has been affirming that the travel route London-Brussels takes 70 minutes in comparison with Eurostar trains for which is required 131 minutes. However, Advertising Standards Authority, ASA points out that the journey from the centre of London to the Stansted airport and from the Charleroi airport to the centre of Brussels will add at least 1 hour 45 minutes to the actual flying time. In turn, “Eurostar” departs and arrives to the centre regions of the both capitals. In addition, the Authority has taken notice that to reach the airports it would be necessary for the passengers to additionally pay, that is why the Ryanair reports about the total cost of the journey are also imprecise. We think that many readers of the advertising messages have no clear idea about where the airports are and what additional charges can be required to reach them, according to the ASA report. The Authority has demanded of the Irish airline to liquidate the disputable statements from all the advertising materials. Meanwhile, Ryanair hurried to defend its position by having told that it will be also required for the passengers to somehow reach the railway stations what also costs money. Only very rich or slow people waste their time on “Eurostar” said the airline representative. No foolish instructions from the regulating authority will be able to hide the success of the airline, according to him. As the data shows on the Ryanair website, for the current July, it transported almost 4, 8 million of the passengers, what is 21% as large as compared with the same period of the last year. In all, more than 45 million of the passengers made use of the Inter-European flights of the Irish air carrier over a period from the first of August to the 31 of July 2007. Meanwhile, “Eurostar” affirms on its website that 7, 85 million of the passengers were transported (which is 5, 4% as large as the results of the year 2005) in 2006 London-Paris travel route (with continuation in Avignon and French Alps) and London- Lille- Brussels. Many of the passengers have chosen the train journey instead of air flights in connection with the intensified security measures in the airports, cancellation or delay of flights because of the terrorist threat and bad weather conditions. The time of journeys in “Eurostar” has more reduced since the current November after the new terminal had been put into service in London Saint Pancras station instead of early used Waterloo station. Tickets for the first trains of the 14th of November in London-Paris and London-Brussels travel routes are fully bought up already. Iuri Tarabanov writes about interesting travel experiences. His Discount Travel site is http://www.travelime.com