The Dispatches programme The Truth about Cheap Flights was aired on Monday night, with an undercover reporter claiming that staff use undisclosed flight mark-ups, charge less internet-savvy customers more, tell customers that flights are non-refundable when in fact they are, and temporarily reserve cheap seats on flights to drive up the prices of the remaining available seats.

The documentary provoked a heated debate on the Facebook page Travel Gossip, with agents seemingly split as to whether they believed Flight Centre was in the wrong, or simply doing as other businesses do in trying to enhance its profits.

Flight Centre has “challenged and addressed the points raised”.

It said: “We have provided Dispatches with a detailed written response to show that the views and recordings in this programme are not a fair reflection of our company culture or customer experience.

We were surprised to see that Dispatches unfairly omitted the crucial evidence we had sent them.

“Dispatches’ allegation that Flight Centre has a policy or culture of applying opportunistic or excessive margins to particular customers or demographics is completely unfounded.”

The company added that the blocking of seat availability was an “abuse of the global distribution system”, which it said was “entirely unacceptable and expressly against our company policy”.