Flight ads mislead consumers: House

Flight ads mislead consumers: House

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"I'm leaving on a jetplane..." is a song that is being hummed
more often in this country as budget airline competition allows
more people to fly.

"I would have never imagined that a Jakarta-Surabaya flight
could cost less than what I pay for a taxi ride to Soekarno-Hatta
International Airport," said Arima Dharmasarie, 54, a south
Jakarta resident who traveled about once every two months to
Surabaya.

But while the deals look good on paper, experience has taught
frequent flyers, such as Arima, that the low flight fares
aggressively advertised by airlines or travel agents are not
always the price consumers get when they buy them.

"There is nothing wrong with promoting low fares through
advertising as long as it is done transparently," said Azwar
Anas, a lawmaker at House of Representatives Commission V, which
overseas transportation, during a hearing with airline operators
last week.

To ensure they are not breaking the law by misleading or
deceiving consumers, airlines needed to clarify the particulars
of the fares to their customers, including the "subclassing"
going on, Azwar said.

Subclassing -- smaller divisions of economy class seat prices
-- is popularly used by air carriers as an income management
strategy.

AdamAir, which has been operating for a year now, divide their
seats into seven subclasses, differing in validity periods. Lion
Air, another budget airline, classifies its economy seats into
five subclasses.

As a promotion strategy, advertisement generally announce the
lowest subclass fares, mentioning "price starts from" and "one
way" in tiny fonts.

However, the lowest fares are usually known to apply only for
two to three rows of seats.

The commission has strongly urged airlines to provide more
information about subclassing and pricing.

"What consumers do not know is how many subclasses there are,
what define each of them and how many seats are available at each
advertised price," said Anas.

The Indonesian National Air Carriers Association (INACA)
secretary general Tengku Burhanuddin told the commission airlines
grouped under his association (17 out of the total 24 local air
carriers) had not placed these kind of low price advertisements
in the media.

"If these are ads from our members, they are probably being
placed by travel agents instead of the airlines themselves,"
Burhanuddin said.

Lion Air public relations manager Hasyim Arsal Alhabsi said
that the strategy was never meant to confuse consumers.

Instead it provided more opportunities for everyone to fly, he
said. (003)