RYANAIR TO CANCEL ALL SCREENSCRAPER BOOKINGS

[White Cap]

Ryanair News
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News Release
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05.08.08
Bravofly Ltd Discontinues Screenscraping Ryanair.com

RYANAIR TO CANCEL ALL SCREENSCRAPER BOOKINGS

Ryanair, Europe’s largest low fares airline today (5th August) announced that BravoFly Ltd (an Irish screenscraping price comparison website) has confirmed that it has discontinued screenscraping the Ryanair.com website as part of legal proceedings filed against both it and its parent company BravoFly SA. This is the second recent success Ryanair has scored against screenscraping websites and follows Ryanair’s successful injunction against V-tours to prevent them from screenscraping Ryanair’s website in Germany.

Ryanair has a policy of preventing screenscrapers unlawfully accessing Ryanair’s website, because in many cases these screenscrapers are engaged in some or all of the following unlawful/inappropriate behaviour:

1. They are in breach of Ryanair’s copyright rules.
2. They are in breach of Ryanair.com’s terms of use.
3. They are levying unjustified and unnecessary handling charges (in some cases up to double the Ryanair fare) on Ryanair passengers.
4. They don’t provide passengers with Ryanair’s accurate terms/conditions.
5. They don’t provide passengers with up to date flight or change information.
6. They are delaying ordinary passengers’ access to the Ryanair.com website.

Commenting on this latest success against screenscrapers, Ryanair’s Howard Millar said:

“We welcome this latest success against screenscrapers, as we continue our campaign to eliminate this unlawful activity from the Ryanair website. Ryanair is pursuing legal actions in a number of European countries to bring an end to this unlawful and anti-consumer activity.

“Many of these screenscrapers do not provide consumers with any useful services, because consumers know that they will get the lowest fares only on Ryanair.com, thanks to Ryanair’s lowest fare guarantee. However, in recent weeks genuine passengers using Ryanair’s website have been suffering long processing times and slower access because of the huge volume of information being downloaded from our website by these screenscrapers all over Europe. In all cases this scraping activity is unlawful and in breach of both Ryanair.com’s copyright and terms of use.

“We are determined to eliminate these illegal practices, particularly in cases where passengers are being misled by screenscrapers into paying higher fares, unjustified handling fees and hotel and car hire charges that are higher than they otherwise would be on Ryanair.com.

“Ryanair will next Monday (11th Aug) introduce new procedures to cancel all passenger bookings made through screenscraping websites. We believe this is a quicker and more effective way of discouraging this unlawful activity and we hope that by getting rid of screenscrapers we will speed up passenger processing times on Ryanair.com, as well as ensuring that Ryanair passengers are not paying unnecessary handling charges or higher fares to screenscrapers. Ryanair is continuing to work with our software providers, Navitaire and Microsoft to proactively eliminate screenscraping of Ryanair’s website. We hope this will ensure that genuine consumers can purchase Europe’s guaranteed lowest air fares while enjoying rapid access and quicker processing times for their bookings on Ryanair.com”.

[c_taranis]

“Many of these screenscrapers do not provide consumers with any useful services, because consumers know that they will get the lowest fares only on Ryanair.com, thanks to Ryanair’s lowest fare guarantee.

Bullshit. Ryan sues them because if you do not book your flight at FR's website, they make less money (FR makes a lot of money by offering hotels/car hires/other stuff on their website).

Why can't they just be plain about that?

Incidentally, the above sentence ist semantically wrong, too. Try to follow his reasoning: "The scrapers provide no useful services because cutomers know that FR's got low fares"? That PR guy must have been dead stoned when he wrote that.

“Ryanair will next Monday (11th Aug) introduce new procedures to cancel all passenger bookings made through screenscraping websites.

Oh yeah. Yes, it's in our booking system, but the customer didn't use our website to book it, so we'll just cancel that ticket.

There's no better way to...

...tell your customers to f*ck off.

BTW: Ryanair will Passagiere sitzen lassen

[flugholm]

Siehe auch hier:
http://www.spiegel.de/reise/aktuell/0,1 ... 47,00.html

Aber es scheint, als wenn Ryanair das nun gehörig um die Ohren gehauen kriegt:

Madrid - Das spanische Verkehrsministerium überprüft die Entscheidung des irischen Billigfliegers Ryanair, Tausende nicht direkt bei der Fluglinie gebuchte Tickets zu stornieren.

http://www.spiegel.de/reise/aktuell/0,1 ... 56,00.html

[ML]

Die EU-Kommision sieht auf jeden Fall keine juristischen Bedenken, auch wenn sie das Vorgehen bedauert:
http://biztravel.fvw.de/news/

[Rolf]

Jetzt prüft die EU-Kommission das Ganze:

http://www.spiegel.de/reise/aktuell/0,1 ... 97,00.html

[heinz-w]

Heute in der RP:
Ryanair darf Flugtickets stornieren.
http://www.rp-online.de/public/article/ ... ieren.html

[wolke7]

Niederrhein: Chepatickets.de erwirkt einstweilige Verfügung gegen Ryanair

Der Internetanbieter für preiswerte Flugtickets Cheaptickets.de hat beim Landgericht Frankfurt eine einstweilige Verfügung gegen die Günstig-Airline Ryanair erwirkt. Demnach werde Ryanair untersagt, nicht direkt über die Website von Ryanair gebuchte Flugscheine für ungültig zu erklären. Ryanair hatte in den vergangenen Tagen angekündigt, dass Kunden, die ihr Ticket über Drittanbieter gebucht haben, von dem Unternehmen nicht befördert werden. Ryanair hat jetzt die Gelegenheit, Widerspruch gegen die einstweilige Verfügung einzulegen. Allein von seiner Homebase Airport Weeze bietet Ryanair 33 Flugziele an.

http://www.antenne-niederrhein.de/aktue ... /index.htm


wolke7

[White Cap]

Ryanair News

News Release
26.08.08

Ryanair Responds To EU Queries Re: Screenscrapers

CALLS ON DG TREN TO PROTECT CONSUMERS FROM
TICKET-TOUT WEBSITES ADDING 200% TO 300% HIDDEN FEES

Ryanair today (26th August) confirmed that it had sent a detailed response to the European Commission’s enquiry letter last week concerning Ryanair’s policy of banning bookings made on unauthorised, illegal screenscraper/ticket-tout websites. A copy of this EU correspondence and Ryanair’s reply has been published on Ryanair’s website at http://www.Ryanair.com. Ryanair provided the European Commission with detailed documentary evidence to demonstrate that these screenscraper/ticket-tout websites are:


1. Guilty of unauthorised and illegal access to the Ryanair.com website.
2. In breach of Ryanair.com’s copyright.
3. In breach of Ryanair’s terms and conditions of travel and terms and conditions of use.
4. Do not provide consumers with Ryanair’s accurate terms and conditions.
5. Do not provide consumers with accurate details of Ryanair’s pricing.
6. Do not keep consumers informed of changes in Ryanair’s terms and conditions or flight information.
7. Are regularly and consistently over-charging consumers with over 200% or 300% hidden mark-ups on Ryanair’s ticket prices.


Ryanair provided the European Commission with evidence of four specific websites, Bravofly.com, Edreams.com, Volgratis.com, Wegelo.com in which the airline’s ticket prices had been inflated by 200% or 300%, without the consumers knowledge, and these hidden mark-ups are billed to the consumer as if this was the Ryanair ticket price. These specific documented examples show the following hidden overcharging of consumers;

(a) Bravofly.com price €60.93
Ryanair ticket price €19.95
Bravofly overcharge €40.95 (205%)

(b) Edreams.com price €385.97
Airline ticket price €106.87
Edreams overcharge €279.10 (260%)

(c) Volgratis.com price €63.25
Ryanair ticket price €25.25
Volgratis overcharge €38.00 (150%)

(d) Wegolo.com price €37.00
Ryanair ticket price €10.00
Wegelo overcharge €27.00 (370%)

Ryanair has pointed out to the European Commission that the illegal and unauthorised activities of these screenscraper/ticket-tout websites have in recent weeks caused dramatic slowdowns and outages on the Ryanair.com website, resulting in bona fide consumers being unable to access Ryanair’s timetables, prices or make bookings on Ryanair.com. Ryanair also explained to the European Commission that since it is the only airline to operate with a lowest price guarantee, Ryanair’s guarantee becomes invalid if these ticket tout websites can overcharge consumers with 200% or 300% hidden mark ups on Ryanair’s guaranteed lowest ticket prices.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary confirmed today:

“We have responded to the European Commission’s enquiries by providing them with documentary evidence of this unauthorised, illegal ticket-tout scam being perpetrated on consumers by these screenscraper websites. It is remarkable, but unsurprising, that a number of European Government agencies and the European Commission has sought to blame Ryanair for blocking the illegal activities of these screenscrapers, instead of tackling the real consumer scandal which is the hidden 200% or 300% mark ups being levied and over-charged on innocent consumers by these illegal screenscraper/ticket-tout websites.

“Since Ryanair is the only airline doing anything to eliminate this unauthorised and illegal practice, we are now calling on the European Commission in general and DG TREN in particular, to take action to force these unauthorised, illegal screenscraper/ticket tout websites to desist from unlawfully overcharging consumers by 200% or 300%, particularly when they provide no useful service to consumers.”

[White Cap]

Ryanair News
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News Release
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28.08.08
Court upholds screenscraper injunction

HAMBURG COURT UPHOLDS RYANAIR INJUNCTION AGAINST UNLAWFUL SCREENSCRAPING WEBSITE VTOURS.DE

Ryanair, Europe’s largest low fares airline today (28th August) welcomed this morning’s decision of the Hamburg Court to uphold Ryanair’s injunction against the unlawful activities of the screenscraper/ticket-tout website Vtours.de, which was previously selling Ryanair tickets, with inflated hidden mark-ups, to German consumers.

Vtours.de had appealed against Ryanair’s original injunction and this case was heard in the Hamburg Court last Thursday the 21st of August. In today’s judgement, the Hamburg Court has confirmed that Ryanair’s injunction remains in place, which will prevent the Vtours.de website illegally screenscraping Ryanair’s website and unlawfully selling Ryanair’s tickets to its customers with unauthorised hidden mark-ups.

Speaking today, Ryanair’s Jim Callaghan said:

“We welcome this latest successful Hamburg Court decision against the Vtours.de screenscraper/ticket-tout website. Ryanair is continuing to cancel bookings made through this unauthorised ticket-tout website, and has called on the European Commission, as well as National Governments to take action to prevent this illegal and unlawful mis-selling to consumers. Sadly we are still waiting for the European Commission to take any action to protect consumers, but we live in hope.”