Defiant Ryanair is to push ahead with legal action against eDreams and Google in the Irish high court.
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Ryanair remains defiant over eDreams and Google court action
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Defiant Ryanair is to push ahead with legal action against eDreams and Google in the Irish high court.
The low-fares carrier rejected claims made by eDreams that it was preventing online travel agencies from providing consumers with the lowest fares.
Ryanair confirmed that it has a number of agreements in place with OTAs across Europe, providing a standard API to enable them to legitimately connect into the Ryanair low-fares website.
Despite the OTA claim Ryanair went on to list a number of metasearch websites is already has agreements in place with like Kayak.com and Skyscanner.com.
The carrier insists that it encourages price comparison websites to display its fares “in the interests of consumers and price transparency” in exchange for an annual charitable donation of €100.
This allows legitimate sites to compare Ryanair’s fares against those of other airlines.
The carrier last week welcomed a response from Google, which made changes to the way eDreams results are promoted after the legal proceedings were started.
The OTA’s paid advertising was amended so that it now reads ‘Ryanair Flight on eDreams’, instead of ‘Ryanair: Cheap Flights’.
EDreams had previously responded to the start of the legal proceedings by saying: “This action is clearly just another attempt from Ryanair to stop online travel agencies from offering consumers the best price and choice when it comes to booking flights.”
But Ryanair chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, said: “EDreams’ claim that Ryanair is trying to prevent consumers from accessing Europe’s lowest fares is completely untrue.
“Ryanair has a number of agreements currently in place with a range of websites, all of whom have signed agreements offered to them by Ryanair – something eDreams refuses to do.
“The high court action is proceeding as planned and we will continue to work on behalf of consumers until eDreams’ practices are fully eradicated.”
