Ryanair, the World’s favourite airline, today (9th Oct ‘09) confirmed that it submitted over 50 separate complaints to Consumer Protection Authorities in Ireland, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain against blatant breaches of consumer legislation by screenscraper websites, including Bravofly, Opodo and Wegolo. Ryanair called on the National Consumer Agency of Ireland, the UK Office of Fair Trading and their equivalents in other European countries to take urgent action and compel these screenscraper websites to comply with the EU Checklist of Compliance with Consumer Rights Legislation in the Air Transport Sector.

Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said:

 

“The EU Checklist is based on price transparency provisions of the EU Air Services Regulation and the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. While the majority of airlines are compliant with the Checklist (as confirmed by the European Commission in May 2009), many of these screenscraper websites continue to breach the most fundamental price transparency requirements, including those on price-inclusive advertising and opt-in sales of optional services.

 

“These misleading and unfair practices lead unsuspecting consumers to pay inflated prices for flight tickets or to inadvertently purchase services which they did not request and do not require. It is in the best interest of European consumers that the same rules that apply to airline websites are also followed by screenscraper websites.

 

“Ryanair now calls on European Consumer Protection Authorities to put an end to the abusive and misleading overcharging of consumers by screenscraper websites, by taking immediate and effective action on these 50 Ryanair complaints in 6 EU countries”.