An email offering flights with Aer Lingus “from just £227 each way as part of a return trip” drew a complaint to the ASA when a potential customer was unable to find return flights to New York for the lead-in price.

The customer argued the ad was misleading, but the airport produced figures to show the percentage of seats available at the lead-in fare to North America for three months.

Figures from Stobart Air – which operates Aer Lingus regional connections – also highlighted the Bristol-New York proportion at the cheapest fare.

Rejecting the complaint, the ASA said figures provided by Bristol airport and Stobart Air “showed there had been availability of seats at the advertised price to all the destinations listed in the ad for each month in which the offer ran”.

In the case of New York, the ASA said “there had been availability to and from one or both of the New York airports every day apart from one, which we noted was the Saturday of a bank holiday weekend and the beginning of the half-term holidays for many schools”.

The ASA continued: “On the other days, availability varied depending on the date of travel and the airport (JFK or Newark), but there was always some availability. We considered consumers were likely to expect availability to be more limited for particularly popular days and flight times.”