The complaint was filed against a banner ad on the Ryanair website for a “big summer sale”.
The ad included a statement marked in a red circle that “prices will rise”, indicating that if consumers did not book at the sales level, they would face higher fares for the same flight later on.
A complainant said the “prices will rise” statement was misleading, however.
They claimed some of the Ryanair air fares actually dropped after the sale, and a flight they had purchased in the sale was cheaper the following month.
In response, Ryanair said that the terms and conditions of the promotion – which ran last December and January – stated that it was subject to availability.
The airline said the lowest fares were limited and sold out quickly.
These fares then required adjustment based on sales and customer demand in line with the dynamic pricing model used by the airline industry.
The airline also provided evidence that, at the time of its response, the flight purchased by the complainant was being sold at a higher price than during the sale.
However, the council noted that the ad saying “prices will rise” did not offer a qualification as to when. It was reasonable for a consumer to presume that after the sale the fare would increase rather than decrease.
It was one of seven ads across radio, TV, social media and online found to be in breach of the Advertising Standards Authority’s code.
Two intra-industry complaints, lodged by competitors of the companies involved, were also upheld.
One of these was a post on Lidl’s Instagram account saying it is “Ireland’s best-value supermarket”. Aldi, its rival, objected to this on the grounds that the claim implied Lidl had won a competition or had been given an independent award. There was nothing in the ad to verify or substantiate the claim.
Lidl said in response that the “best-value supermarket” claim could be fully substantiated from Ireland RepTrak 2024 data.
The supermarket chain added that it had amended the ad campaign to include this substantiation data at the bottom.
However, the council ruled that a claim to be the best value would require detailed price comparisons across all competitors, and this had not been submitted.
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