The Court of Appeal has dismissed Ryanair’s appeal over an interim injunction that would have required Skyscanner to ensure online travel agents supplied Ryanair with passengers’ personal email addresses or telephone numbers when booking its flights.
The ruling does not decide the underlying action. The court considered whether Ryanair had shown a sufficiently strong and clear case for mandatory interlocutory relief, and whether the balance of justice favoured granting it before trial.
Ryanair says its website terms prohibit commercial use of its flight price and timetable information and automated extraction of data. Skyscanner’s site displays that information and directs users either to Ryanair or to online travel agents, some of which book flights using their own contact details rather than the passenger’s. Skyscanner denied that it itself engaged in screen-scraping and did not explain in its evidence how it obtained the information.
The Court of Appeal said Ryanair had a strong arguable basis for enforcing its website terms in principle. It noted that users had to accept those terms to access the site, and that Skyscanner knew of them. The court also said the evidence supported, for the purpose of this interim application, a strong and credible basis for Ryanair’s claim about how the information was obtained.
However, the defendants’ competition-law counterclaim raised a serious issue. They allege that Ryanair’s restrictions on commercial use of its flight information abuse a dominant position and harm competition in online travel services. The Court of Appeal stressed that the evidence did not establish that claim as clear or strong, and that it remained conditional and would require detailed examination at trial. But its complexity was enough to weaken the clarity of Ryanair’s case below the threshold for the mandatory orders sought.
The court also agreed with the High Court that the balance of justice favoured refusing the injunction. Ryanair’s principal loss was commercial and could be quantified if it succeeded at trial. The proposed order would have required Skyscanner to change how it dealt with online travel agents, monitor their practices and potentially restrict their listings. The court considered that burden disproportionate to the benefit, particularly as the travel agents could continue selling Ryanair flights through their own sites and other platforms.
The court dismissed the appeal. It made no final determination of the parties’ claims or counterclaim. The parties were to return for a further hearing on costs.