On 20 June 2011, the Italian Competition Authority decided to start an investigation in order to ascertain the alleged unfairness of the online reservation system used by defendant on its Italian website for the sale of flight tickets.
In particular, the investigations related to price indications on the website of defendant (http://italia.lufthansa.com), whereby it was established that there was a lack of clear and accurate information on the existence of additional charges, as well as the exact amount of the charges. The investigations led to the conclusion that the end price was significantly higher than the ticket price.
The evidence collected in the course of the investigations revealed that consumers were made aware of additional charges only after the completion of the online reservation. More specifically, after selecting the relevant flight, the price displayed was automatically increased with (i) a card surcharge, of which the amount depended on the means of credit/debit card (except for PayPal) used to conclude the transaction, and (ii) an additional 5 Euro charge.
The defendant claimed that the above facts occurred in very few occasions, mainly due to malfunctioning of the online reservation system.