Gatwick in trouble with ASA over campaign for expansion
Gatwick Airport has been told off by advertising watchdogs for claims it made in its campaign to get a new runway.
A magazine ad to promote expansion of Gatwick stated: "320,000 additional people will be affected by noise from a new runway at Heathrow. Compared to 18,000 at Gatwick."
Small text at the bottom of the ad stated: "Heathrow already flies its planes over central London. Choosing to build a new runway there isn’t exactly going to be music to many people’s ears."
A poster included the same comparative claim about the number of people who would be affected by a new runway.
After investigating a number of complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority concluded the ads did not make clear that the quoted figures related to the number of people who potentially would be affected in 2050, in comparison with those who potentially would be affected if expansion did not go ahead.
It also concluded the ads did not refer to the number of people who would be ‘newly removed’ as a result of expansion, nor did they make clear the specific expansion scenarios and assumptions that the figures related to.
"We therefore concluded that readers would not adequately understand the basis of the comparative claim and that it was therefore misleading," it said.
It also said the ads had breached the code because they did not include any information regarding the source of the figures or the particular expansion scenarios they related to.
"Therefore, we considered that consumers would not be able to locate and interrogate that information, understand how the figures had been calculated or check that the comparison was accurate. Because of that, we considered that the comparison was not verifiable and concluded that the ads were in breach of the Code," it said.
However, it did not uphold a third complaint that the ads did not point out a new runway at Gatwick would fly over quieter, more rural areas and therefore the impact of the noise would be far greater than in ‘noisier’, metropolitan areas around Heathrow.
The ASA ruled that the ads must not appear again in their current form.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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