COMPETITION AND TOURIST PROTECTION 281 Authority has objected to an airline’s65 special fare offer for several routes, namely multi-stop roundtrip tickets. The travellers had to follow one specific order in the various flights which the ticket consisted of. Failure to do so would cause the traveller to lose their right to the special fare, and the company was then free from the obligation to provide the traveller with the next leg of the journey. If the traveller wanted to continue their journey they were forced to contact the company and have them change the route and recalculate the fare. The Competition Authority pointed out lack of clarity of the information provided66. According to the company67, in order to offer travel at a lower cost, it is necessary for seat bookings to be flexible. A passenger’s failure to show up for boarding, without warning the company beforehand, prevents renegotiation with another passenger, and the carrier must bear the cost without the revenue that would have been obtained from a new booking; this would make it impossible to offer lower fares. Therefore, whenever a passenger does not board one of the flights in the ticket, the company cancels the other bookings in order to be able to quickly offer these seats to other customers. The paid fee can be refunded, partially or fully. According to the Competition Authority68, the information provided on these practices was scarce and imprecise; in particular, information regarding the obligation to notify the carrier of the intention to continue the journey after not showing up for boarding was deemed insufficient. In the airline’s view, the consumer must give notice of the change in their itinerary so as to allow the fee to be recalculated; otherwise, the original contract would be voided. For the Competition Authority, these restrictions clashed with the reasonable and intuitive beliefs of the consumers and clear and detailed information on them became mandatory69. 65 See the action taken by the Italian Competition Authority on 7 June 2017, no. 26637, in Boll., no. 22 of 26 June 2017. 24. 66 See Mancaleoni, Pratiche commerciali scorrette (drip pricing): sanzioni e ruolo dell’Authority in Australia e in Italia, loc. cit., 159 and following. 67 See the action taken by the Italian Competition Authority on 7 June 2017, no. 26637, cit. 68 See the action taken by the Italian Competition Authority on 7 June 2017, no. 26637, cit. 69 See Seminara, La tutela civilistica del consumatore di fronte alle pratiche commerciali scorrette, loc cit., 690 and following; Orlando, Le informazioni, Padova, 2012, 150 and following; Di Nella, Le pratiche aggressive, in Aa. Vv., Pratiche commerciali scorrette e Codice del consumo. Il recepimento della Direttiva 2005/29 /CE nel diritto italiano, G. De Cristofaro (ed.), Turin, 2008, 231 and following, according to which the law of commercial practices tends to protect procedural fairness more than the substantive fairness that is to deal with the freedom with which the consumer should decide in an informed way.
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