EasyJet has been ordered to change the wording in the ‘fees and charges’ section of its website after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint that customers were being misled over the cost of adding a cabin bag to their booking.
Consumer group Which? challenged wording on the site that said large cabin bags could be added ‘from £5.99’.
EasyJet argued it had not misled customers because the ‘fees and charges’ page was intended for information purposes, not for use in broader promotions or marketing campaigns.
It said large cabin bags could be added across its network from £5.99 but it was not possible to display an exact price on the page as this varied depending on availability, demand, and operational cost.
If customers chose to add a large cabin bag to their booking, the actual price was shown clearly during the booking process before purchase to ensure transparency, it said.
But the ASA said customers would understand the wording meant that large cabin bags would be available to book for £5.99 across a significant proportion of flight routes and dates.
The ASA said: “Whilst we acknowledged easyJet’s assurance that large cabin bags could be purchased for £5.99, we considered that alone was insufficient to substantiate the ‘from’ pricing claim.
“Because we had not seen sufficient evidence to demonstrate that large cabin bags were available to book for £5.99 across a range of flight routes and dates, we concluded the ‘from’ pricing claim had not been substantiated and was misleading.
The ASA said the marketing communication must not appear again in the form complained of.
