Ryanair wins court ruling to proceed with case against OTA screenscraping of fares

Ryanair has welcomed a Dublin court ruling to allow the airline to proceed with action against screenscraping of its fares by OTA eDreams.

The airline said that the Irish High Court had rejected an eDreams challenge to the country’s courts’ jurisdiction over the issue, which Ryanair claims resulted in customers being overcharged.   

An earlier High Court order saw eDreams give an undertaking not to access Ryanair’s Travel Agent Direct (TAD) platform, after Ryanair disclosed that it uncovered unauthorised use of the system to resell flights at “inflated prices”. 

Other approved OTA partners including Booking.com, lastminute.com and Kiwi have direct access to Ryanair fares under distribution agreements that provide “full price transparency” for customers.

A Ryanair spokesperson said: "We welcome this High Court victory for Ryanair and our customers over eDreams.

“eDreams’ attempt to avoid the Irish courts has failed, and our case to stop eDreams screenscraping Ryanair.com and overcharging consumers will now proceed.

“Ryanair has already secured a permanent High Court undertaking preventing eDreams from accessing our Travel Agent Direct platform after it was found reselling Ryanair flights without permission.

“We will continue to protect consumers from overcharging and ensure access to the lowest fares through approved travel agent partners.

“If eDreams wants direct access to Ryanair fares, it can simply agree to the same transparency standards already accepted by Booking.com, lastminute, Kiwi and many others."

A spokesperson for eDreams Odigeo said that it intends to appeal, adding: "Today’s court decision in Ireland is strictly procedural and determines only where matters may be litigated; it expressly does not concern the merits of the case.”

They said: "We respectfully disagree and will appeal, as these matters were conclusively judged and resolved long ago, when Ryanair lost at every level up to the highest national courts in Europe.

“Rather than re-litigating settled cases, Ryanair should start complying with the binding orders it continues to blatantly breach. 

“While Ryanair persistently tries to restrict consumer choice, we remain focused on delivering the widest multi-product, multi-provider offering for consumers on a single platform.”