Travel agents have scored better than airlines in a usability study by web experts.

According to the study by Webcredible, on average airline websites scored 48% for usability compared with 55% for agents. Opodo was rated the most usable online travel website scoring 67%, while British Airways led the way for airlines achieving 65%.

Ryanair and Monarch came bottom of the report because of the poor transparency of pricing, something that has been getting increasing focus from both the media and the OFT recently.

The white paper examined the websites of 20 of the UK’s online travel agents and airline carriers. It found that only three companies – Opodo, British Airways, and Travelbag – scored over 60% when measured against a set of specific criteria.

Many of the top internet brands scored only around 50%.

Travel agent sites, Opodo and Travelbag, were found to offer users the best online experience, scoring 67 and 62 out of a potential 100 respectively.

While airline carrier sites Monarch and Ryanair scored lowest at 38 and 40.

Webcredible director Ismail Ismail said: “Users need to have clear and accurate pricing displayed through-out their journey through a site. It’s not acceptable to add ‘hidden’ charges at the very end of a transaction process – this is something which a number of airline carriers are guilty of.

“Many of the sites also suffered with inaccessible user information. For example, with the growing number of airlines flying to new and mysterious-sounding airports many of the sites aren’t being upfront about where they are based and how users will get there. 15 out of 20 travel sites scored 0 out of 5 on this guideline.”

The report concludes that both airlines and agents are neglecting the potential of web 2.0 technology and are failing to use even the most basic sharing functions.

The websites analysed and their scores were:

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