Ryanair bans Momondo from selling its flights

Ryanair has revoked a licencing agreement with travel comparison website Momondo following an alleged breach of contract.

The airline had granted a non-exclusive licence to Momondo to display its fares for price comparison purposes, one of a number of travel websites including SkyScanner, Hipmunk and Dohop licenced to do so.

However, Ryanair revoked its licence after the airline alleged Momondo displayed links to unauthorized ‘screenscraper’ websites, including Opodo and CheapOair, which Ryanair said were ‘unlawfully mis-selling’ its fares.

In response, Momondo MD Pia Vemmelund said: "Our primary purpose has always been to show the lowest available price to provide our users with transparency.

"Therefore, we won’t compromise on that transparency by taking out specific travel agencies from our search results just because an airline like Ryanair tells us to. That would be against our principles.

"We can confirm that we no longer have a license agreement with Ryanair, but we cannot confirm a breach of contract or that we agreed to exclusively show Ryanair prices through Ryanair’s website only.

"So, we continue to show Ryanair flights when these are sold through travel agencies, and we’re happy to continue to show our users the lowest prices and offer transparency."

Ryanair has been engaged in several legal cases across Europe against screenscraper websites such as Opodo and eDreams.

"Many of these websites continue to cause problems for Ryanair customers and/or fail/refuse to pass on vital information to both customers 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 customers," it said.

Ryanair has started legal proceedings in the Irish High Court against both Google and eDreams to stop them advertising Ryanair fares via the eDreams website and Google search adverts.

In March, the UK Advertising Standards Authority found that eDreams’ and Opodo’s advertising on Google was ‘misleading’ consumers and breached advertisers’ code of conduct.

Earlier this month, following a CAA investigation, eDreams and Opodo changed their Google adwords practices, website appearance and headline prices but Ryanair has accused eDreams of continuing to advertise non-existent fares.

However, eDreams claims Ryanair is trying to ‘bully’ online agents.

In a statement it said: "Ryanair are trying desperately, but failing, to stand in the way of the millions of people using online travel agent sites like ours, to get the best deal and the most convenient combination of flights possible.

"Ryanair are threatened by the fact that close to half of our customers book a combination of flights which cannot be booked on any single airline website.

"This bullying behaviour – trying to force sites to remove the best deals possible – is risking consumers losing out. We offer customers all the information needed to book their flight and make sure they know of any changes to their travel or check-in, through our free mobile app – it is misleading to suggest otherwise."

Ryanair responded to eDreams accusations by saying it ‘has no issue with OTAs who display Ryanair’s fares in a transparent manner’ and stressed it has no commercial agreement with eDreams or Opodo.
 

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