Emirates pays Tauranga man $13,555 over ‘misleading and deceptive’ advertising of business class seats

Emirates has paid a Tauranga man $13,555 after he challenged the airline in the Disputes Tribunal over misleading adverts promoting comfortable business class features not available in New Zealand.

Mark Morgan stumped up for business class seats that reclined to lie flat for a trip for he and his wife to England.

But the aircraft Emirates was running from New Zealand were older planes than the Boeing 777-300 featured in advertising targeting New Zealand travellers.

Morgan and his wife found the seats didn’t recline to lie flat, were less cushioned than those shown in Emirates’ advertising, and the entertainment system was not a new, upgraded system, and “due to its age, malfunctioned”.

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There was also no mini-bar or internet connection.

The airline argued its small print allowed it to vary the services it advertised, and that it had not broken the Fair Trading Act(FTA) by running an advertising campaign that would mislead New Zealand travellers.

But Disputes Tribunal referee Laura Mueller ordered the airline to pay Morgan, saying: “Emirates advertised a business class service that consumers were very unlikely to receive.”

She said: “This was the result of advertising a service that they were rarely delivering, not due to an occasional or one-off change of aircraft due to operational requirements.”

The business class seats and amenities it advertised were not provided to Morgan and his wife, she said.

“The promotional materials were based on an updated/new business class seat and service that is not in place in the older aircraft that Emirates flies to NZ,” Mueller said in her decision.

She said Emirates argued that its contracts with customers allow it to change the aircraft it flies on routes due to operational requirements and that its newer planes were required on other routes due to its New Zealand operations being run at a loss.

But, Mueller said: “The Fair Trading Act 1986 prohibits misleading and deceptive conduct in trade. The advertising of a service that Emirates knew would unlikely be delivered is misleading and deceptive.”

She said the Consumer Guarantees Act also applied as the airline had provided services that were not supplied as described to the buyer.

Morgan told the tribunal Emirates’ advertising was intended to lure travellers away from other airlines, but it was selling a service that “essentially did not exist”.

Mueller said: “The Tribunal agrees. Accordingly, the Tribunal finds that Emirates misrepresented the business class service available to NZ customers, and to Mr Morgan in particular and is in breach of the FTA.”

Emirates claimed the service he had was only a 5% reduction in quality compared to the service it advertised, and had offered a refund of $786.

It told the tribunal that the seats Morgan and his wife received reclined to 166.1 degrees, rather than lying completely flat, but it said: “To the ordinary air-traveller the seat made available is equivalent to a lie-flat seat”.

But Morgan sought a partial refund of the price of the tickets he bought, as well as a refund of the price he paid to upgrade to first class on one leg of the journey so he and his wife could get seats that lay flat, so they could sleep.

Mueller ruled that Morgan’s claim for $13,555 reasonably and fairly reflected the difference in service advertised and paid for, versus the service received.

Morgan told the tribunal Emirates had even sent him a photo of business class seating in the newer planes when he bought his ticket.

She ordered Emirates to pay Morgan the money by March 27.