Online travel firm On the Beach is suing Ryanair.
On The Beach says Ryanair is abusing its ‘dominant’ position and breached competition rules by stopping its customers from managing their bookings online.
According to legal filings reported by the FT, Ryanair ‘degrades the experience for On the Beach customers by making it less convenient and/or more expensive for customers to use Ryanair than for direct customers.’
Ryanair also blocked the company’s credit cards, the lawsuit claims.
From December last year, Ryanair refused to let customers manage their bookings or check in online, and there have been instances of customers being charged an extra €55 to do so, the complaint alleges.
Ryanair slammed several OTAs for not refunding customers after flights were cancelled.
However On the Beach claims package travel rules forced it to refund customers for bookings that Ryanair did not pay back, totalling £48.7 million.
The airline has had long-running spats with various OTAs which CEO Michael O’Leary has called ‘overcharging scam artists.’
Ryanair tried to sue On The Beach a decade ago for alleged screen scraping practices.
