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Ryanair reveals details of EU gripe

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    Date: Tuesday 26 Aug 2008

    LONDON (ShareCast) - No-frills airline Ryanair has revealed details of its justification to the EU for its policy of banning bookings made on third-party web sites.

    The airline has provided detailed documentary evidence of practices by what it terms “screenscraper/ticket-tout web sites” that violate Ryanair’s copyrights, breach its terms and conditions of use and which inflate the prices charged by Ryanair.

    “Ryanair provided the European Commission with evidence of four specific web sites, Bravofly.com, Edreams.com, Volgratis.com, Wegelo.com in which the airline's ticket prices had been inflated by 200% or 300%, without the consumer’s knowledge, and these hidden mark-ups are billed to the consumer as if this was the Ryanair ticket price,” a statement from the airline said.

    Ryanair itself has a history of being accused of hidden charges. In January of this year consumer rights magazine “Holiday Which?” found Ryanair to be the worst of the budget airlines at imposing hidden fees, charging passengers £20 at the airport to check a bag into the hold and £4 simply to use the check-in desk.

    Meanwhile, in July of last year, ABN Amro estimated that Ryanair’s revenues had been boosted by around €240m in 2006 by “ancillary revenue”, of which only €121m derived from what ABN Amro termed “genuine ancillaries”.

    Late on Monday night a Ryanair plane en route to Spain had to make an unscheduled landing at Limoges airport in France, as a safety precaution when cabin pressure became low.

    Some passengers claimed that the oxygen masks on the plane did not work, a claim denied by the airline. Sixteen people were taken to hospital complaining of earache.

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