More than half of Europe's airlines could have their websites shut down because of opaque fare conditions and pricing.

A European Union investigation published today confirmed that more than 50 per cent of 447 websites checked showed irregularities relating to price indications, contract terms and clarity of proposed conditions.

The EU consumer affairs watchdog carried out a probe over one weekend in September, checking 447 airline websites with the help of 15 EU national authorities and Norway.

Of the 447 websites, 226 were found to have irregularities. The inquiry found 46 of 48 Belgian websites had irregularities, as well as 9 of 11 Italian sites and 20 of 30 Finnish sites. No Austrian, Cypriot or Greek sites were found to have irregularities.

EU Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva warned the owners of the websites that they had four months to “get their act together” or face possible closure of their sites.

“We discovered that about 50 percent of airline ticket selling Web sites are currently letting Europe’s consumers down,” Kuneva said in a statement. “Today I am issuing the strongest possible warning to companies to take swift action to put their house in order. Once the January deadline expires I will not hesitate to go further against companies which are still breaking the law.”

The EU’s executive European Commission said possible sanctions included “imposing and collecting fines or closing down websites”.

The checks followed another survey in Spain last month in which a consumer rights watchdog said it had found misleading information in seven of 12 airline ticket websites including Ryanair. The Spanish authorities also found faults with Spanish carriers Vueling, Iberia and Spainair. “Ryanair and those other companies in the Spanish investigation are on our radar,” a European Commission source told Reuters.

Those airlines at fault, according to the Spanish watchdog, were found guilty of practices including the following:

* the price of the ticket is first indicated without airport taxes and additional fees

* offers promising tickets free or at a low price but such tickets are unavailable when the consumer wants to buy them

* tick boxes for insurance or additional services are ticked “yes” by default, trapping the consumer into buying unwanted items or being included on spam mailing lists

* general terms of sales are not provided in the language version used by the consumer during the booking procedure - or not available at all in any language

* no information is given about the rights and procedures of cancellation, transferability and ability to change dates.

Ahead of today's statement by the EU, Ryanair moved to claim its innocence. “All prices advertised on www.ryanair.com’s homepage and all of Ryanair’s media advertising is fully tax inclusive,” Ryanair said in a statement.

Although the survey results do not identify any airlines, the EC is set to publish a list of companies concerned in four months’ time. Helen Kears, a European Commission spokeswoman, told Thomson Financial News: “We have to carry out this investigation in two separate phases.

"The first phase are the facts and figures about the numbers of airline sites checked and how many were found with irregularities and how many were found to be fully compliant with EU law.

“After that there’s an enforcement phase, and during that time any company which is flagged as having irregularities on a website will be contacted by national enforcement authorities and given a right of reply. Companies will have to be given an opportunity to either clarify their position or to correct their site.”

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