Ryanair is to ask the High Court next week for injunctions restraining two German-based websites from continuing alleged unlawful ticket sales and charges.
Counsel for the airline Martin Hayden SC told the court today that Ticket Point Reiseburo GmbH, Horster Straffe, Gelsenkirchen, Beur, and Billigfluege.de GmbH, of Vibeler Landstraffe, Frankfurt, had been illegally selling cheap flights on Ryanair aircraft and adding service and credit card charges.
Mr Hayden told Mr Justice Daniel O’Keeffe the airline intends to seek injunctions restraining the defendants from infringing trade marks, logos, database rights, extracting information from Ryanair’s own website, establishing and maintaining unauthorised links to the Ryanair website and from passing off their search and booking services as connected with Ryanair.
Mr Hayden, who appeared with barrister Ross Aylward, said Ryanair had made fake bookings through both of the defendants websites in the name of Mary Bloggs, Main Street, Dublin, Great Britain, with an e-mail address at derry.kissane_at_gmail.com. He said the booking revealed that the German websites were adding a €10 service charge, which Ryanair does not charge, and a €5.35 credit card charge.
Mr Hayden said the Spanish government paid a €25 subsidy to Spanish nationals with big families when they flew between the Spanish mainland and all Spanish Islands, such as the Canaries, and this was not being passed on to passengers who booked through the German websites.
Juliusz Komorek, director of legal affairs with Ryanair at Dublin Airport, told the court the airline sells seats on its flights through www.ryanair.com and www.bookryanair.com
He said the defendant’s two websites misrepresented the price of Ryanair flights by imposing a service charge and a credit card fee. The only way they could offer Ryanair flights for sale was by use of an automated system of software using a process commonly known as “screen scraping.”
By mimicking an actual user the defendants could automatically copy data from a host site and transfer it to an alternative site from which the screen scraper could utilise it for its own purpose.
Among the orders Ryanair will be seeking from the High Court next week will be damages for misrepresentation and negligent or wrongful infringement and an injunction prohibiting the use of unauthorised and concealed charges.