Ryanair has announced its plans to cancel all those bookings made through online "screen scraping" programmes.

Published: 11 Aug 2008

Ryanair has announced its plans to cancel all those bookings made through online "screen scraping" programmes.

As per the information available, from August 11, the airline will cancel bookings made through websites which use screen-scraping, which entails lifting details from one website to produce a mirror of the original page on another. Up to 1,000 Ryanair passengers a day could find themselves stranded without flights as a result of an aggressive new policy at the airline.

"We are free to cancel a booking," said Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary. "We want to cause as much chaos for the screen scrapers as possible."

Ryanair will refund the cost of the flight to the intermediary website.

Screen-scraping websites allow bookings to be made with Ryanair without ever taking the customer to the airline's official website. The company later clarified that it believes these sites are illegal and this move is a quicker and easier deterrent than taking them to court.

The airline has reportedly already taken legal action against Italian company BravoFly, which has now discontinued the practice, and has secured an injunction against German-based V-tours. Other websites highlighted by Ryanair include Opodo.com, Atrapalo.com and OTBeach.com.