Ryanair wins US lawsuit against Booking.com

A jury in Delaware District Court unanimously found on Friday in favour of Ryanair’s claims that Booking.com had violated the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, causing loss to the Irish budget airline.

The jury also dismissed Booking.com’s counterclaims against Ryanair, which included claims for defamation, unfair competition, and deceptive trade practices.

Booking.com has said it intends to appeal.

The case focused in part on the practice of “screenscraping”, through which Booking.com is said to have obtained information about Ryanair flight prices. The airline argues that this practice is unlawful and deceptive.

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary welcomed the ruling as a “great victory for low fare air travel” as well as a “great win for the travelling public”.

The airline “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”, he said.

He added: “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 the UK and Europe to finally take action to outlaw this illegal screenscraping and over charging of consumers for flights and ancillary services.”

In a statement, Booking.com said: “We are disappointed with the decision, with which we disagree. We maintain that allowing customers to access and compare fares across the travel industry promotes consumer choice, and plan to appeal.”