Emirates to challenge EU report

The carrier is accused of ignoring or failing to respond adequately during an 18-month long investigation on misleading fare advertising.

The EU says the airline has ignored an investigation into misleading online advertising.

Emirates Airline contested a report by the EU listing the Dubai carrier as one of 12 airlines which have persistently misled customers over fares on their websites. The carriers, including Northwest, Aeroflot and Olympic, ignored or failed to respond adequately during an 18-month long investigation on misleading fare advertising by the European Commission's Consumer Affairs division. A total of 137 airline websites were targeted for deceptive "headline prices" which did not account for hidden extra costs such as taxes, charges and fees. Since then 115 of the offending websites have promised to comply with the EU rules.

Richard Vaughan, the divisional senior vice president of worldwide commercial operations at Emirates, said the airline was one of few which proactively and transparently displayed fares and provided inventory for those fares on its websites and with Global Distribution Systems (GDS). "We are surprised at the revelations of the EU report on airline websites," he said. "There has been no communication from the EU investigators warning us of any compliance issues. If such issues exist, we would be very keen engage in dialogue to understand these issues."