Ryanair’s fight against online agents will be taken to the Irish courts
The Irish Supreme Court has ruled that legal cases taken by Ryanair against screenscraper websites can be heard in Ireland.
Ryanair has been taking action against various different online travel agents, including On The Beach, eDreams and Ticketpoint, across Europe in a bid to stop them featuring its fares.
These companies had been trying to overturn a High Court ruling that the Irish courts had the jurisdiction to hear the case.
But this has now been dismissed by the Supreme Court.
The decision effectively gives the green light to Ryanair to bring its actions against them. The airline is expected to seek seek injunctions in the Irish courts against all three to prevent them selling its flights.
Ryanair claims these OTAs are misleading customers with with artificially low on-screen prices which ‘bear no relation to the total amount that customers end up paying’.
It says they also cause problems for passengers and for Ryanair because they refuse to pass on vital information regarding issues such as flight changes, web check-in, special needs assistance and contact details.
Ryanair claims this has led to passengers missing flights and other issues.
"The ruling will have no impact on the authorised websites we work with today, over a dozen, who are supplied with Ryanair’s product inventory, so as to allow customers to compare airfares," said Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs.
"However, many screenscraper sites continue to artificially inflate Ryanair’s fares and give a bad experience to customers, particularly those that want to change an element of their booking. We are calling on the EU to intervene and prohibit these practices in the interest of consumers."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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