Airline review company exonerated by ASA
The Advertising Standards Authority has knocked down four complaints against airline review company Skytrax, which runs airlinequality.com, the World Airline Awards, the Passengers’Choice Awards and the World Airline Survey.
A complainant challenged whether Skytrax had made certain misleading claims on all four of its websites, but the ASA found that it had not.
The complainant had challenged whether Skytrax had misleadingly implied that its World Airline Star Rating system was internationally recognised by governments or governmental aviation agencies; whether Skytrax could substantiate claims that more than 18 million airline customers from 100 different nationalities participated in its customer satisfaction survey of over 200 airlines; that 18.8million from over 100 nationalities voted in the 2011 World Airline Survey; and that the 2010 Passengers’ Choice Awards were decided by 28 million travellers from more than 100 nationalities.
The ASA investigated all four complaints and said that it did not find any breach of its code.
It said it did not agree with the complainant that Skytrax had implied its rating system was recognised by governments, it said the claim "merely implied Skytrax ratings were internationally recognised".
Skytrax provided evidence that at least 13 airlines referred to Skytrax ratings in their advertising.
The ASA also concluded that claims made by the World Airline Awards, the World Airline Survey and Passengers’ Choice Awards had been substantiated by Skytrax.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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