Woodkirk Stone
The UK High Court has dismissed a request by Ryanair to stay legal proceedings brought against it by an online travel agency.
Travel agent On The Beach launched legal action against the airline last October over what it claims was a “concerted campaign” by Ryanair to prevent competition from online travel agents.
Ryanair wanted the action to be suspended as it said a number of related proceedings were already underway in Ireland.
Ryanair has taken legal action in Ireland, the UK, mainland Europe and the US against ‘screenscrapers’, usually online travel agents who sell Ryanair tickets through their own websites, often in the part of a vacation package.
Ryanair says the practice means customers often pay more for tickets than they would have had they booked their seats directly through the airline’s website. He also claims that because he does not have the personal details of passengers booked with him via screenscrapers, he cannot reliably notify them of flight cancellations, for example.
The carrier also claims that screenscraping interferes with its business model, as it bears the cost of hosting and operating its website which online travel agents then access, and that the practice also deprives it of the ability to sell ancillary products and services to passengers.
Last year, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said up to 20% of the airline’s ticket sales were made through screenscrapers, double the amount before the pandemic.
He described online travel agents who access his website as “borers”.
On The Beach markets itself as a one-stop-shop, where vacationers can select components of their trip such as flights and hotel through its website. When a customer selects a Ryanair flight, On The Beach makes the booking as agent on behalf of the customer. The travel agent claims that Ryanair wants to appropriate the customer relationship itself, to “monopolize the market for booking its flights and reduce competition and the choice of ancillary services”.
On The Beach alleged that Ryanair tried to prevent the company from making bookings on its behalf, by withholding refunds from its customers and argued that the conduct was an abuse of dominance.
Ryanair is suing On The Beach in Ireland in proceedings that began in 2010 and are still ongoing. On The Beach has not yet argued its defense in this action.
The UK High Court has said that staying the lawsuit brought against Ryanair by On The Beach could mean the online travel agent’s claims “would be stayed for what could be a number of years pending the resolution of the Irish proceedings”. .
She rejected Ryanair’s request for suspension.
Earlier this year, Ryanair was given the green light to take legal action against online travel giant Booking.com, its parent company and US subsidiaries over alleged screen scraping of the company’s fares Aerial.
The airline filed a lawsuit against Booking.com and its subsidiaries – Kayak.com, Priceline.com and Agoda.com – in 2020 in Delaware. He claimed that the defendants were depriving him “of the opportunity to maximize his income” from his own website.