Sarah Prager, Competition Law - OTAs and airlines

(c) that OTB’s alleged use of ‘fake’ email addresses prevents OTB Customers from viewing their itinerary, managing their booking, or checking in on Ryanair’s website. However, OTB provides its customers with login details for the Ryanair account used for the booking, and alleges that in fact Ryanair deliberately blocks OTB customers from managing their bookings or checking in online, in breach of those customers’ contractual rights, in a deliberate attempt to degrade their experience. (d) that OTB uses ‘fake credit cards’ when paying for fights on behalf of its customers, when in fact OTB uses its own, valid, credit cards (which Ryanair has historically accepted as payment on a large number of occasions) in order to provide additional services such as allowing customers to pay in instalments, and to allow OTB to use its card issuers’ chargeback procedures to obtain refunds from Ryanair. (e) that OTB ‘obstructs refunds’, making it more difcult for Ryanair to refund OTB customers. In fact, so OTB says, it typically refunds customers in accordance with its own obligations, whether or not it has received a refund from the relevant airline. Furthermore, it is a matter of record that OTB has often refunded OTB Customers the cost of cancelled Ryanair fights without Ryanair having provided any refund itself, thus necessitating a separate legal claim brought by OTB against Ryanair in respect of refunds made by OTB to customers for cancelled Ryanair fights, in respect of which Ryanair has still not reimbursed OTB. (f) that OTB applies ‘massive mark-ups’ to the cost of fights, which OTB vehemently denies, stating: “This is false. Like any business operating as a going concern, OTB makes a margin on the services it provides…but it operates in a highly

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