THE battle for Spanish holidaymakers between rival south coast airlines Flybe and Ryanair hotted up yesterday amid a crackdown over misleading pricing.

Bournemouth-based Ryan-air announced that it was going head-to-head with Southampton's largest airline Flybe on direct flights to sun-kissed Alicante.

The east coast Spanish city is the gateway to the Costa Blanca's popular holiday resorts such as Benidorm.

The announcement came as competition chiefs forced 11 airlines, including Flybe, to change adverts and websites to give travellers the full cost of flights, including all charges, from the outset.

Ryanair has changed its homepages but said that technical issues prevented it from changing its entire website booking processes immediately.

It has been given until January 31, but will meanwhile add a warning statement to its website.

Complaints The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) took action after complaints that passengers only discover the full cost of their flights when they come to the last part of the booking process.

OFT executive director Sean Williams said it wanted to ensure that consumers were "not misled by advertised prices that bear little relation to actual prices".

Announcing Ryanair's new route from December, executive Ed Grimsey said: "Alicante is a fabulous sun destination and we expect the demand for travel to be massive.

"In addition, Ryanair's huge brand presence in Spain will ensure the route will be popular with Spanish visitors to the south coast."

Mr Grimsey added that Ryanair was giving away 100,000 seats from just £10 to celebrate.

Flybe said that it recognised the "importance of healthy competition to increase customer choice" but insisted that it was "the number one regional airline serving the south coast".

It added: "Our competitive, all-inclusive advertised fares, high levels of customer service and comprehensive choice of routes from Southampton, have allowed us to develop a strong and loyal customer base across the region."

War of words It was the latest development in the rivalry between Ryanair and Flybe which has seen a war of words and special offers.

Ryanair already operates eight routes from Bournemouth - to Dublin, Barcelona, Pisa, Glasgow, Madrid, Marseilles, Nantes and Shannon.

Flybe has 37 routes from Southampton, and directly competes on flights to Dublin and Glasgow.