Ryanair takes battle with Google and Edreams to the High Court

Ryanair is taking its battle with internet giant Google and on-line agent Edreams to the High Court.

The airline demanded in the autumn that Google enforce greater transparency in internet advertising to prevent customers being “misled” into buying their flights at from on-line intermediaries rather than from the Ryanair website.

On Tuesday it said it is launching High Court proceedings against the search engine and website Edreams to “stop them misleading consumers by advertising non-existent Ryanair fares”.

"These practices are prohibited by consumer legislation," the airline said. "As a result, Ryanair has also put the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission on notice of the proceedings."

The company maintains that Google is allowing Edreams to use the sub-domains “Ryanair cheap flights” and “Ryanair.Edreams.com” to lure consumers into visiting the Edreams website and booking flights from it at inflated fares.

Ryanair's chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, said that the action is a repeat of successful lawsuit in Germany, where the court ruled that Edreams could not advertise the airline's flights in that country.

“Both the subdomain Edreams uses, and the branding and design it employs on this site, are a deliberate attempt to dupe consumers into thinking they are directly booking Ryanair’s low fares,” he said.

Mr Jacobs added that, as Google had ignored repeated calls for greater transparency in advertising, Ryanair had no choice but to take the action.