MILAN COURT OF APPEAL RULING DISPROVES OTA PIRATE/AGCM FALSE CLAIMS

Ryanair today (Wed 17 Apr) called upon the AGCM to explain why it has allowed itself to be misled by OTA Pirates such as eDreams, and why it has ignored the recent ruling of the Milan Court of Appeal, which dismissed the false claims of OTA Pirates and ruled that Ryanair’s direct sales policy was “reasonable”, led to lower costs and lower fares, and “undoubtedly benefits consumers”. However, just 3 months later, this ill-judged AGCM case shows that eDreams misled the AGCM, falsely claiming there is an immediate risk to its “very survival” if it cannot keep applying hidden markups to Ryanair services in Italy. This glaring contradiction between the Milan Court ruling and the AGCM case shows that the AGCM has wrongly ignored the Milan Court ruling which is not referred to in its case.

Ryanair has signed “Approved OTA” agreements with multiple OTAs, including Loveholidays, Kiwi, TUI, On the Beach, eSky and El Corte Inglés. These partnerships guarantee transparent pricing for consumers as required by EU law. This contrasts with the OTA Pirate model currently being used by eDreams and others which involves unlawful digital piracy (screenscraping) of Ryanair.com, and inflating airline prices with hidden overcharges or invented “fees” which seriously harm Italian consumers as follows:

Ryanair continues to campaign for consumer protection from OTA Pirates like eDreams, Opodo and Booking.com, and calls again on the AGCM to outlaw OTA Pirate overcharging through hidden mark-ups on airline fares, baggage, reserved seat and other fees.  The failure of the AGCM to protect Italian consumers is indefensible in the wake of the (Jan 2024) Milan Court of Appeal ruling which recognised that Ryanair’s direct sales policy is “economically justified” by “eliminating the costs associated with intermediation in ticket sales” and has led to lower costs and lower fares, and “undoubtedly benefits consumers”.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said:

“The AGCM case shows that they are being misled by clearly false claims from OTA Pirates, such as eDreams, particularly when these same claims were dismissed by the Jan 2024 Milan Court of Appeal ruling which found Ryanair’s direct sales policy to be pro-consumer.

The Milan Court of Appeal dismissed these false OTA Pirate claims and ruled that Ryanair’s direct online sales policy is “reasonable” and “leads to lower costs and lower fares” for Italian consumers, whereas unauthorised OTA Pirates like eDreams wish to continue to scam Italian consumers with hidden mark-ups and inflated prices for Ryanair services as shown in the above table. The Milan Court also ruled that Ryanair’s direct sales policy “undoubtedly benefits consumers”, which clearly disproves this ill-judged AGCM case.

When will the AGCM finally take action to protect Italian consumers from eDreams’ hidden mark-ups and internet piracy and follow the conclusive ruling of the Milan Court of Appeal, which recognised that Ryanair’s policies and pricing are pro-consumer and “undoubtedly benefit consumers.””