Row hots up between On the Beach and Ryanair

On the Beach has defended itself against allegations by Ryanair that it has breached the terms of use on its website.

The airline says has it has initiated legal action against the online travel agent and is seeking to ban On The Beach from "unauthorised screenscraping and mis-selling of Ryanair seats at inflated prices to consumers".

Ryanair claims it has received calls from over 300 passengers in recent months who have experienced problems after booking Ryanair flights with the agent.

But On the Beach chief marketing officer Alistair Daly said it would strongly refute the allegations.

"On the Beach is one of 36 OTA’s across Europe against which Ryanair, within the past four years, have either issued or lodged proceedings with the Dublin High Court.

"As well as the 36, we are aware they have written to a number of other high profile UK OTA’s outlining similar allegations but have not yet commenced proceedings against these businesses.

"We are disputing Irish Jurisdiction and in any event will robustly refute the allegations made by RyanAir.

"On the subject of the customer queries outlined in the press release, we categorically deny that there is any basis to these allegations and believe we have fully dealt with all the issues outlined in our correspondence with them."

Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said: "Online travel agents or "screenscraper" websites continue to cause problems for passengers with their non-existent or inadequate after-sale service.

"Many of these sites fail to pass on vital information to both passengers and Ryanair regarding issues such as flight changes, web check-in, special needs assistance and contact details, which has resulted in missed flights and repeated problems for their misguided customers."

by Bev Fearis

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