Friday, July 26, 2024
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Ryanair wins a German court ruling against eDreams, affirming claims of excessive fees and misleading practices by the Spanish OTA.
Today, Ryanair, the leading airline in Europe, announced that the Berlin Regional Court in Germany ruled in its favor in ongoing legal disputes with the Spanish online travel agency (OTA) eDreams and its high-priced website. This decision in Berlin follows a favorable ruling from the Delaware Court in the USA last week against Booking.com. The American court determined that Booking.com had violated the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by illegally obtaining data from Ryanair’s website with fraudulent intentions.
In the recent verdict from Germany, the Berlin Regional Court of First Instance deemed eDreams’ “service fee” of €3.88 as unreasonably high and thus illegal. The court also found that eDreams’ “Flexfare” option, which purportedly allowed customers to change their flight details without cost, was deceptive. In reality, eDreams only waived its own fees while airline-imposed change fees were still applicable.
Additionally, the same court issued Ryanair an injunction against eDreams Prime Terms & Conditions, challenging eDreams’ claims of offering discounts equal to the value of the eDreams Prime annual membership fee. The court exposed false advertising practices by eDreams, which had previously asserted that Prime members would receive discounts on all flight bookings. Ryanair continues to reveal these practices as another instance of deceptive overcharging by this Spanish OTA.
eDreams remains the last major OTA in Europe accused of unlawfully harvesting data from Ryanair’s website and inflating prices for consumers unknowingly. By contrast, nearly all other prominent European OTAs have entered into agreements with Ryanair as “Approved OTAs.” These agreements ensure that these OTAs display the actual costs of seats and additional services from Ryanair and provide accurate customer contact and payment details. Such agreements are designed to shield consumers from the excessive fees and scams like those associated with eDreams and its Prime membership.
Ryanair’s Chief Marketing Officer Dara Brady said:
“Last week’s ruling in the Delaware Courts was a momentous victory against Booking.com, but was also a significant win for consumers. Booking.com can no longer illegally scrape Ryanair (and other airline websites) in order to overcharge consumers for the underlying air fares or ancillary services. Yet here in Europe, eDreams remains the last significant OTA Pirate, which is still illegally scraping Ryanair’s website, and still trying to overcharge unsuspecting consumers with inflated air fares and marked up ancillary services.
We call on eDreams to cease this anti-consumer overcharging and to sign up to Ryanair’s Approved OTA distribution agreement, like most other European OTAs now have. This will guarantee consumers real Ryanair prices for seats and ancillary services and deliver to Ryanair real customer contact and payment details instead of fake email addresses and fake card payments. The only reason why eDreams won’t sign is because they prefer to keep overcharging consumers, especially with their worthless “Prime” membership scam.
These last remaining OTA Pirates, led by eDreams, must stop overcharging consumers. If they wish to charge a transparent fee for their services then that’s their decision, but they must stop scamming and inflating Ryanair and other airline travel prices to unsuspecting consumers.”
