The Emirates Airline promotion that Qatar’s Civil Aviation Authority quashed last month was “misleading to the utmost level,” the government body announced in a new statement asserting its authority.

“The Civil Aviation Authority was surprised by the Emirates promotion that defied all rules and regulations. It had violated the pricing rule as the company didn’t submit any request to the Authority regarding the promotion that offered 25 per cent discount on its fares,” said the statement, which was published in the Peninsula.

“When the Authority knew about this offer, it studied it using their price list and found that the prices fixed in the offer were misleading the utmost. And those facts that the consumer must know were not included in the offer,” added the statement.

“Those facts” included taxes that the customers had to pay and that the promotional tickets were not refundable. 

The CAA, which is finally addressing a weeks-old outcry over the rescinded Emirates promotion, added that it had shut down a Qatar Airways promotion for different reasons in the past.

The authority’s statement is already getting a critical reception on the Tweetosphere, and is sure to further incense a group of Qataris for whom the incident sparked a boycott against Qatar Airways. 

I, for one, still clearly recall how upset people were over last month’s Qatar Airways’ National Day “sale.” Where was the CAA with that?