According to a recent survey, 37% of Britons - or a whopping 16.4 million UK residents - now prefer to book flights and holidays online. But how good is the customer service behind the automated online systems?

Researchers tested the websites of 10 companies from each of ten popular online sectors, including banking, retail and travel. Of all sectors, the travel websites most frequently failed to answer common consumer questions.

And when the testers emailed the companies in question to have their queries answered, the humans behind the websites didn't do much better than the websites themselves:

MyTravel took an hour to respond; First Choice and Flybe took 43 hours; Thomas Cook took 94 hours and Virgin Atlantic, which prides itself on its customer service, 149 hours.

Thomson, which encourages people to book online, along with British Airways and British Midland, did not reply at all, and it was not possible even to send an email to Ryanair or EasyJet.

I can't help but imagine that if Ryanair and EasyJet could figure out how to charge passengers for email enquiries - say, a modest £1.75 charge on your credit card - they'd have online customer service rolled out in less time than it takes them to turn around an aircraft.

Of course, the email reply you'd paid for would still be subject to unavoidable delays and occasional cancellation, with no refunds offered.