Virgin criticised on seat adverts

The adverts included a disclaimer at the bottom

The advertising watchdog has upheld four complaints about claims made by Virgin Atlantic in press and magazine promotions for premium economy class.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said people may have been misled into thinking all its premium economy cabins had new, larger leather seats.

Virgin said a footnote made it clear the seats were available on 58% of its London Heathrow flights at the time.

The ASA said the airline's disclaimers were likely to have been overlooked.

'Small text'

The ASA ruling said: "We noted nearly half the Heathrow planes were not fitted with the new seats at the time the ad appeared, and that replacement of old seats across the fleet would be ongoing in 2008.

"We considered that the disclaimer, which appeared in small text outside the main body of the ads, was likely to be overlooked by readers.

"Because it did not make the limitations to availability sufficiently prominent, we concluded that the ads were likely to mislead."

The Virgin footnote also stated that the airline was continuing to roll out the premium economy seats to the rest of its Heathrow and Gatwick fleets.

The company told the ASA that most airlines advertised new seats before they were available on every route, because of the time that the installation took.

Virgin said the new premium economy seats were now available on 86% of its Heathrow departures - and 67% of its entire fleet.