Ryanair has secured an undertaking from online travel agency eDreams to cease circumventing its secure flight booking system, the High Court in Dublin heard on Tuesday. The legal action, initiated by the airline, alleged that eDreams was exploiting a platform designed for traditional brick-and-mortar travel agents to make bookings it was not authorized to access.
The dispute centers on Ryanair’s “travel agent direct” platform, introduced to facilitate bookings through agencies with physical offices or phone-based customer service. Ryanair claimed eDreams, along with Indonesian agency PT Span Ocean Travel and Australian agency Geelong Travel, were improperly utilizing the system. According to court filings, Ryanair granted PT Span Ocean Travel access to the platform on January 6th, but the agency subsequently generated an unusually high volume of bookings – approximately one every three minutes, 24 hours a day – raising suspicions of automated booking activity.
Ryanair barrister Martin Hayden told the court that the proceedings against eDreams had been settled following discussions between legal teams. The terms of the settlement involve undertakings from eDreams regarding its use of the platform. The case against PT Span Ocean Travel and Geelong Travel continues, as neither agency was represented in court.
Ryanair alleges that PT Span Ocean Travel made 22,435 bookings through the platform since January 6th. The airline further contends that many of these bookings were accompanied by fabricated customer email addresses, suggesting the use of bots to bypass security measures. Ryanair suspended PT Span Ocean Travel’s access to the platform on February 24th after a customer reported being unable to manage a booking made through eDreams, with the email address linked to the online agency.
Geelong Travel, which received approval to use the platform in July, had completed nearly 2,000 bookings as of February. Ryanair found this volume unusually high given Geelong’s location in Australia and its apparent lack of affiliation with a larger, established travel agency network. Following a customer complaint regarding a booking made through Geelong, Ryanair also suspended that agency’s access on February 25th.
In an affidavit, Ruth Comiskey, Ryanair’s head of litigation, described a “long and fractious history” between Ryanair and eDreams, involving previous disputes over the scraping of flight data from the airline’s website. Comiskey asserted that eDreams had effectively co-opted the direct platform accounts of PT Span Ocean Travel and Geelong Travel to make bookings it could not otherwise access, undermining the system’s intended purpose of supporting traditional travel agents.
Ryanair contacted all four defendants, reminding them of the platform’s usage conditions. Only Geelong Travel responded, stating it was unaware of any prohibition against reselling Ryanair flights through online agencies and pledged to investigate. Comiskey indicated that Ryanair has identified four additional travel agencies that may be engaging in similar practices and could be added as defendants in the ongoing legal action.
Ryanair maintains that eDreams’ actions pose significant regulatory, consumer, and reputational risks to the airline. The airline has not disclosed details of the undertakings given by eDreams, and the case against PT Span Ocean Travel and Geelong Travel is scheduled to resume next week.
