Friday, July 12, 2024
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Ryanair has released its July OTA Pirate survey, revealing eDreams as Europe’s leading OTA Pirate. According to Ryanair, eDreams continues to exploit its “Prime members,” overcharging them by more than 100%. For instance, a Wizz Air 10kg bag priced at €14.90 directly with the airline is being sold by eDreams for €30.92. Similarly, eDreams lists BA reserved seats at €39.49, while the same seat costs just €23.00 on British Airways’ website, representing a 72% overcharge.
Ryanair highlights that although eDreams is not selling Ryanair fares in July, it continues to overcharge for other airline flights and services. This is another instance of digital piracy by eDreams, whose business model, according to Ryanair, relies on deceiving consumers into believing they are receiving discounts. In reality, eDreams imposes hidden mark-ups and overcharges exceeding 100%.
Ryanair remains committed to advocating for consumer protection against such overcharging by OTA Pirates like eDreams. The airline once again urges EU governments and consumer agencies to take immediate action to halt these OTA scams and protect consumers from being ripped off.
Ryanair’s Dara Brady said:
“Our July OTA Pirate survey exposes eDreams as Europe’s No.1 OTA Pirate. They continue to scam and overcharge their customers by up to 108%. This is just the latest example of OTA Pirates, such as eDreams, unlawfully scraping airline sites so they can overcharge unsuspecting consumers. eDreams should stop screen scraping and duping customers and instead agree to sell airline flights with transparent pricing, just as Ryanair’s growing network of “Approved OTA” partners have done.
It is unacceptable that the EU Govts and Consumer agencies continue to ignore this rampant digital piracy and anti-consumer overcharging. Ryanair will continue to campaign against OTA Pirates such as eDreams by exposing their overcharging scams, and will continue to call for these OTA Pirates to be outlawed.”
