Ryanair has launched legal action against Google and travel website eDreams over claims that consumers are being conned into mistakenly believing they are booking flights direct with the airline.
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Ryanair said Google was allowing eDreams to use “misleading subdomain” www.Ryanair.eDreams.com and a web site with branding similar to Ryanair’s to sell tickets at higher prices than on Ryanair’s own web site.
Ryanair’s chief marketing officer said the airline had no choice but to take legal action against both Google and eDreams.
Based on a survey conducted, 82 percent of the adult consumers believed that site to be the official Ryanair website.
eDreams’ main site features the Ryanair logo but is branded as eDreams and urges users to “browse low cost flights with Ryanair using the eDreams search engine”.
“Our repeated calls for greater Google advert transparency, or for Google to comply with their own code of conduct, have been ignored, and in order to prevent 1,000’s more consumers being misled on the Google search engine, we have commenced these High Court proceedings.”
According to the airline eDreams has been doing this for up to 18 months but Ryanair claims there has been a surge in customers asking it about eDreams in the past year.
O’Leary added: “I got a lot of things wrong in the past”.
The online travel agency was also ordered to pay compensation for trademark infringement.
It claims Google allows activities by eDreams that are prohibited under consumer legislation, by allowing the OTA to use “misleading subdomains” and advertise “copycat” websites. They also have never made such deceptive advertising fares that simply don’t exist.
“The case against Google and eDreams has only just been filed so there is little we can say beyond the fact that we disagree strongly with Ryanair’s position”, a statement from the Spanish e-commerce travel companies said.
Separately, speaking to journalists at an event in London, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said the recent terrorist attacks in Paris had not had a significant impact on its business.
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Ryanair says it has no commercial agreement with eDreams, and its calls for Google to be more transparent with its advertising “have been ignored”.
