4/ Complaints about Ryanair Adverts.

- The low-cost airline Ryanair has been reprimanded for putting out misleading adverts promising cheap fares with hidden surcharges. The Advertising Standards Authority says Ryanair must be more precise about its offers for cheap fares. The move comes after the watchdog upheld a number complaints. Rory Cellan-Jones has more. - London Stansted, a popular destination for Ryanair passengers from Glasgow, but one potential customer found that some of the budget airlines bargains, werent quite what they seemed. An advert promised flights at 19.99 $ to London 29.99 $ to Paris. But

while those fares were supposed to be available on every flight, the customer found it cost more at weekends. Whats more, Ryanairs weekends included Friday and Monday. After a reprimand from the Advertising Standards Authority, the airline was this morning making only a partial apology. - What we said to the Advertising Standards Authority is : we followed exactly, the instructions you gave us for these ads if theres any restrictions we were to put them in a footnote, like the weekend supplement. I do however accept that by nobodys definition can a weekend include Monday and Friday.

- The budget airlines are enjoying a boom. In December, Ryanairs traffic was up 31% on the year before, Easyjet enjoyed a 37% rise and Gos traffic saw a 57% increase, this at a time when Bristish Airways traffic was down over 10%. But consumer experts warn that budget fares do have their drawbacks; theres limited availability-sometimes just 10% of the seats on a flight, as weve seen from Ryanair, the time you can travel is often very restricted, and you may be flying to airports way out of town. In the wake of September 11th, the budget airlines have succeeded in wooing nervous passengers with cut-price deals, but intense competitition means some may be

tempted to promise more than they can deliver.