Irish airline Ryanair has obtained a legally binding injunction from Spanish online travel agency (OTA) eDreams in the Irish High Court. The court order requires eDreams to cease all direct and indirect access to Ryanair's "Travel Agent Direct" (TAD) booking system. The travel portal must also immediately implement measures to prevent unauthorized use of the airline's system by subcontractors or other third parties. This legal victory follows Ryanair's blocking action last week, which aimed to prevent attempts to illegally obtain airfares through external interfaces.
The legal dispute between the budget airline and the booking platform has been simmering for years and is being fought in several European countries. Ryanair accuses eDreams of manipulating prices through so-called screen scraping and charging customers hidden fees. European regulatory authorities and courts have also recently taken a critical look at the Spanish company's business practices. For example, the Italian competition authority AGCM imposed a fine of nine million euros, classifying the "eDreams Prime" subscription model as misleading. In Germany, the Hamburg Regional Court confirmed that the platform's price displays could deceive consumers, which has already resulted in substantial fines.
While competitors like Booking.com, Lastminute, and Kiwi have already signed official partnership agreements with Ryanair and are directly using its APIs, Ryanair says eDreams has so far refused to adopt the required transparency standards. The airline offers travel portals free access to its fares, provided they waive additional service fees and allow direct communication between the airline and passengers. Ryanair's Chief Marketing Officer, Dara Brady, emphasized that the recent court ruling is an important step in protecting passengers from price markups by unauthorized intermediaries.
Internal eDreams documents, which surfaced during legal proceedings, sometimes referred to "reverse psychology" as a method used to push users into paid subscriptions. The recent ruling by the Irish High Court marks a turning point, as eDreams is now legally obligated to completely sever its technical connection to the Ryanair system. For the travel industry, this means further consolidation of distribution channels, with airlines increasingly and aggressively defending their control over pricing and direct customer access against third-party providers.