Booking.com plans to appeal the verdict of the case won by Ryanair in the United States, a result which has implications for the travel industry.
A Delaware court ruled that Booking.com violated the computer fraud and abuse act by unauthorised access of Ryanair’s website.
The jury found Booking.com induced a third party to access Ryanair’s website with an intent to defraud.
It is one of a series of legal actions taken by Ryanair against third-party booking platforms reselling tickets without permission.
Booking said in a written statement: “we maintain that allowing customers to access and compare fares across the travel industry promotes consumer choice, and plan to appeal.
Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said “we expect that this ruling will end the internet piracy and overcharging perpetrated on both airlines and other travel companies and consumers by the unlawful activity of OTA pirates.
“Ryanair and our customers warmly welcome yesterday’s unanimous jury ruling in the Delaware Court, which comprehensively (found in favour of Ryanair, proving that the travel industry giant Booking.com had illegally “scraped” Ryanair’s website, and did so with an intention to defraud both Ryanair and ordinary consumers, which was in breach of the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
It is unacceptable that global giants, like Booking.com (mkt cap $133bn), have been engaged in these illegal and deceptive practices for many years with the intent to defraud both Ryanair and consumers. Ryanair has fought to protect consumers and ensure that they have direct access to Ryanair’s low fares, and our low-price ancillary services without OTAs, like Booking.com and others, inserting themselves into this relationship in order to overcharge unsuspecting consumers who believe they are booking directly with Ryanair, but in fact are being duped into booking (at inflated prices) via these OTA Pirates like Booking.com.
We also welcome the Delaware Courts rejection of Booking.com’s counterclaims that they had been defamed by Ryanair when calling them an OTA Pirate. We hope these Delaware Court rulings will now see an end to OTA Pirates illegally screenscraping travel websites like Ryanair.com, and will force consumer agencies across Europe to finally take action to outlaw this illegal screenscraping and over charging of consumers for flights and ancillary services.
This ruling is a great victory for low fare air travel, and it’s a great win for the travelling public as well. We sincerely thank the District Court of Delaware and the jury for their ruling, which completely vindicates Ryanair’s case against Booking.com on behalf of our customers. We now call on Booking.com’s vastly overpaid CEO Glen Fogel ($46m pay in 2023) that he and his company will cease scraping the Ryanair.com website and stop overcharging consumers with inflated air fares and ancillary services, now that Booking.com has been found to be in breach of the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.”
