Ryanair, the UK’s No.1 airline, today (Fri 27^th Oct) called out unlicenced OTA, On the Beach, and its CEO, Shaun Morton, for their hypocritical press release dated 24^th Oct, in which On the Beach called for “fair play” and asked the UK’s Competition Market Authority (CMA) to “investigate airlines”, even while On the Beach continues to mislead consumers, overcharge them for air fares, overcharge them for ancillary services, and then mask this scam by making bookings on the Ryanair website using fake customer credit cards and fake customer emails and fake customer phone numbers.

Ryanair today re-released its press release dated 11^th Aug (attached), together with the latest evidence of On the Beach’s overcharging for flights (26% more than Ryanair’s prices) and overcharging for bags (19 % more than Ryanair’s prices) in bookings made on 23^rd Oct.

Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary said:

“It is bizarre, hypocritical and dishonest for On the Beach and its CEO, Shaun Morton, to call for “fair play” for screenscrapers and internet pirates, while at the same time his company knowingly and deliberately overcharges unsuspecting consumers for flight bookings on Ryanair, for their ancillary services on Ryanair, and then On the Beach uses fake credit cards, fake emails and fake customer phone numbers to prevent Ryanair from communicating directly with these customers.

These disreputable practices means that consumers are not only overcharged by On the Beach, but they are also prevented from receiving Ryanair emails about online check in or other important information about flight delays and/or flight cancellations. The attached evidence of recent bookings made using the On the Beach platform shows how consumers are being scammed for inflated air fares and inflated ancillary services by On the Beach and its CEO, Shaun Morton.

If Shaun Morton and his screenscraping pirate, On the Beach, want to call for “fair play”, then they should start first with their own website. Ryanair does not (contrary to the false claims of Shaun Morton) deny consumers choice. We have offered to licence OTA’s like On the Beach, but only if they agree not to scam customers for inflated air fares or inflated ancillary services. Overcharging OTA’s such as On the Beach reject this licence offer, which is why they continue to scam consumers for inflated air fares, and inflated ancillary services. They then use fake credit cards and fake customer email addresses to cover up their hypocrisy and duplicity.

Ryanair calls on the CAA and the CMA to finally take action against internet scammers like On the Beach to stop them from overcharging consumers when they provide no useful service whatsoever. Why should consumers pay higher air fares than are available to them on the Ryanair.com website simply because unauthorised OTA’s scrape our website and use this pirated digital information to overcharge, dupe, and misled consumers. If Shaun Morton and On the Beach want “fair play”, then they should start with their own website first and stop screwing consumers. It’s time for Govt. action against these OTA scammers and put an end to this internet piracy by On the Beach and its hypocritical CEO, Shaun Morton.”