Civil Aviation Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I have a lot of sympathy for this amendment. However, most of us, as the noble Lord indicated, will tend not to look at the CAA website when we are booking a plane ticket and will instead look at the individual airline or—as I did foolishly, and have recorded in my blog—at a site called fly.co.uk, which invents all sorts of other hidden surcharges of its own. It is an area that is bedevilled by surprises that are intended to get you when you have already committed and just want to get on with the business of getting your ticket. I would certainly appreciate anything the Government can do to make this area less dangerous for the likes of me.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I note that in the preamble to subsection (1), it says that the CAA,

“must publish, or arrange for the publication”.

There is no reason why it should not arrange for the publication of these figures by the airlines themselves, as part of the contract that it has with the airlines. I do not fly myself as I have been banned from flying—not because I drink too much or anything like that but for medical reasons—but I am very conscious of the amount of publicity that is given and the number of complaints there are about the lack of clarity and transparency over airline fares. This is a very valuable amendment.