THE December Retail Price Index is published tomorrow and Senator Philip Ozouf says he hopes the quarterly figure will be ‘more reliable’ this time.

He was sceptical about the last set of figures after it was claimed that air travel had risen by 26% year on year.

The impact of that could have been responsible for a full one per cent of the overall RPI figure of 3.8%.Both Senator Ozouf and the airlines expressed concern that the index did not take into account internet fares booked far in advance and that the real cost of air travel had fallen.’I had grave concerns about the figure and I stand by those concerns.

I believe the figure was higher than it should have been.

Tomorrow I’m looking for a correction in the index,’ said the Senator.Policy and Resources’ statistics unit confirmed that their figures were based on flights booked within two weeks of the travel date, although they had begun to collect information on a wider range of fares.Senator Ozouf called for a thorough review of the method of calculation, but head of statistics John Imber has insisted that the figures accurately reflected what had happened in the travel industry.

He also said that comparisons with the UK showed a similar picture.But Senator Ozouf remains unconvinced and believes that the September RPI figure of 3.8 % could have been lower.’It is vital that we get this right and that the index is reliable and accurately reflects what is happening,’ he said.

‘I am satisfied that the methodology going forward is much more robust than in the past.’Despite the big increase in the air travel section, the RPI actually fell in September to 3.8%, compared with 4.2% in June.