RYANAIR HAS ANNOUNCED it is bringing a High Court case against an Irish travel agency over alleged unathorised selling of tickets for the airline’s flights.
The airline claims that Budget Travel mis-sells Ryanair flights by screenscraping ticket information from the airline’s website and selling seats at inflated prices to consumers. Budget Travel has rejected the claims.
In a statement, Ryanair said that it allowed and encouraged “price comparison only” websites to access its timetable and pricing information in the interest of price transparency. It says the licence agreement – which allows access in return for a €100 charitable donation – was open to all genuine price comparison websites but that, while many such as Skyscanner.net have signed up to the agreement, Budget Travel “has refused”.
Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said:
Budget Travel has no permission or agreement with Ryanair and we have been forced to take legal action to insist that they immediately desist from unlawfully scraping and selling Ryanair’s low fare flights often at inflated prices to unsuspecting consumers.
Ryanair claims that the agency applies price mark-ups of €18 or more and fails to provide customers with a cost breakdown when selling seats.
It also says that the agency fails to pass on passenger details, meaning that Ryanair cannot communicate directly with customers in the event of changes to schedule or flight disruptions.
It said that Budget Travel fails to forward passenger credit card details, which means refunds cannot be passed onto customers directly, and that the agency charges upwards of €75 for returning funds issued by the airline to passengers.
Ryanair also said the agency did not offer ancillary services including special assistance reservation, seat reservation, and priority boarding, and fails to notify customers of the airline’s terms and conditions when booking.
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