THE HEAD of Britain’s business watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), yesterday criticised Ryanair over aspects of its charging policy.

In an interview with the London Independent, John Fingleton, chief executive of the OFT, attacked the company for fees that could be added when customers pay online.

He singled out the practice of levying fees by adding charges to payments made with a specific type of bank card.

And he also questioned the automatic addition of insurance to flights by airlines such as Ryanair, unless customers opted out.

Earlier this year, following OFT intervention, Ryanair promised to take steps to improve the clarity and transparency of its website and other advertising.

The London Independentreported that from last month payments made by the widely used Electron card, which had previously been free, began to attract the fee. Ryanair changed its free "option" to MasterCard pre-pay.

Mr Fingleton accused the company of using “very low frequency payment mechanism” to get round the rules. He told the paper: “Ryanair has this funny game where they have found some very low frequency payment mechanism,” he said. “On some level it’s quite puerile, it’s almost childish.”

Ryanair rejected Mr Fingleton’s comments which it described as “disappointing and wrong”.

The airline denied there are hidden fees or charges on its website and said all non-discretionary fees and charges are included in its advertised prices. Ryanair also said payment handling fees are discretionary and are free for passengers using its recommended Mastercard debit cards and it added that insurance services are purchased by customers on an opt-in, not an opt-out basis, as claimed by Mr Fingleton. – (Additional reporting PA/Reuters)