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Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary accused his counterpart at eDreams Odigeo of misleading his shareholders when he stated that high courts in Europe have already decided that eDreams Odigeo brands have the right to access the airline’s flights, and that the matter is closed.
“This statement by Dana Dunne is meaningless waffle,” O’Leary told Skift, referring to the eDreams Odigeo CEO. “He is just spoofing his shareholders. eDreams does not have access to Ryanair content unless it unlawfully scrapes Ryanair’s website.”
Ryanair has been battling online travel agencies that scrape its website without authorization, and O’Leary said that courts in France, Italy and Ireland have already “ruled that screen-scraping Ryanair’s website is illegal.”
O’Leary was reacting to statements from Dunne during eDreams’ Odigeo’s earnings call Tuesday, which covered the June 30 quarter.
Dunne said eDreams plans to do what’s in the interest of its customers and shareholders regarding Ryanair, and would also follow European law.
“I should also just state for everybody that there’s been – this matter has been litigated in terms of access of content, and there’s been final judgments from high courts in Europe, so it cannot be re-litigated,” Dunne said. “And according to these rulings, our travel brands are fully within their rights to include all flights and all related public data as part of our offering.”
Court decisions on the screen-scraping issue across Europe appear to be conflicting.
eDreams points to a Supreme Court of Spain ruling that it says found screen-scraping legal.
An eDreams spokesperson said “Ryanair’s statement is not really worthy of a reply with the exception that High Courts across Europe have deemed screen scraping legal.”
However, in December the Irish High Court found that screen-scraping Ryanair’s website was illegal, and many online travel agencies that had been doing it ceased the practice at that time. That contributed to a number of online travel agencies coming to terms with Ryanair to access its fares, but eDreams Odigeo is not among them.
Ryanair Cost eDreams Additional Prime Subscribers
The stakes are high for eDreams Odigeo in its quest to give its customers the ability to book Ryanair flights. Chief Financial Officer David Elizaga said during the company’s earnings call Tuesday that it is facing headwinds in signing up members to its Prime subscription plan, which offers flight, hotel, and car rental discounts in exchange for an annual fee, because it only has had intermittent access to the airline’s flights over the past nine months.