Ryanair seeks injunction in US to prevent Booking.com accessing site
Move follows airline’s successful court case against the internet travel giant over the screen-scraping of its fares
Ryanair has sought an injunction in the United States to permanently prevent Booking.com from accessing its website.
The move follows a court case in July where Ryanair won an action against the internet travel giant over screen-scraping of its fares.
Now the airline wants a court in Delaware to permanently injunct Booking.com from accessing its website, arguing that the internet travel firm has previously indicated it would not be deterred from doing do even after receiving letters from Ryanair to desist.
“Ryanair seeks to enjoin Booking. com from engaging in conduct that has already been adjudicated unlawful,” lawyers for the airline have told the court.
“Booking.com’s vendor, Etraveli, has demonstrated that it and its partners continuously attempt to re-establish access to Ryanair’s protected computers even when their access is cut off,” they added.
“Consequently, Ryanair is still investing monetary and human resources to prevent Booking.com and its vendors from accessing its protected computers.”
The lawyers added: “Two different Booking.com employees, each under oath, testified that they would seek to continue to sell Ryanair flights, even knowing they are not authorised to do so.
“This testimony necessitates a permanent injunction.”
After a four-day trial in July, Ryanair prevailed in the case that it launched in the US against Booking.com in 2020.
A jury in Wilmington, Delaware, found that Booking.com had caused economic harm to Ryanair and induced content platform Etraveli to access Ryanair’s website without authorisation.
All the counterclaims by Booking. com against Ryanair – which included allegations of unfair competition and defamation – failed. However, Booking.com was cleared by the jury of conspiring with Etraveli to intentionally access the “MyRyanair” part of Ryanair’s website, in violation of the US Computer and Fraud Abuse Act (CFAA).
Screen-scraping involves a third party accessing an airline’s website and often offering that airline’s fares to its own customers via its own website.
The airline, headed by group chief executive Michael O’Leary, accused Booking Holdings of screen-scraping its fares.
Booking.com is now pushing the court to reverse the verdicts in the case.
It has claimed the trial was “reduced to a dispute” between two European companies and should not have been heard in the United States.
Booking.com has said if the Delaware court does not grant judgment in its favour against Ryanair, that alternatively, a new trial should take place.
In the meantime, Ryanair wants Booking.com blocked from accessing its website
Despite having now inked deals with a number of online travel agents (OTAs), Ryanair chief technology officer John Hurley testified during the trial that OTAs cause varying damage to the airline’s systems.
“One is technical harm, as in OTAs in general cause problems with the website – a poorly written script can generate too much traffic,” he said.
“The other problem is data integrity, because they give us false e-mail addresses, the wrong credit card details.
“From credit card e-mails we can’t always read, which annoys the finance department, and the details, [it] means we can’t contact passengers, which is a problem for flight safety. It’s a problem for regulations.”
“Two Booking.com employees testified that they would seek to continue to sell Ryanair flights”