Low-fares airline Ryanair was yesterday banned from claiming that its flights from London to Brussels are faster, cheaper and more reliable than the same services offered by Eurostar .
A Ryanair advert had compared a flight from Stansted Airport near London to Charleroi Airport near Brussels, claiming it was an hour faster than the Eurostar service between the two cities.
However, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found that the commercial breached rules on truthfulness and comparisons with competitors.
The ASA said the advert was misleading, as transfers to and from the centre of London and Brussels would add one hour and 45 minutes to the total journey time, making the two trips roughly the same.
The UK watchdog also found Ryanair guilty of making another misleading claim by stating its flights were cheaper than Eurostar because it failed to take into account the cost of transfers between airports and city centres.
The ASA also upheld a third complaint, relating to the airline's claim that it’s London to Brussels flights were "more punctual". The authority accepted evidence on behalf of Eurostar in favour of the figure quoted by Ryanair which came from a two-year-old BBC website report.
As a result, the Irish airline has been ordered to remove the claims "Brussels faster and cheaper" and "more punctual" from similar ads.
In response, Ryanair argued that its advert clearly stated which airports it used and that its comparison of journey times was valid and added that neither its fare nor Eurostar's took account of other travel costs associated with the journey .
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