At the start of this month, the Irish carrier began cancelling and reimbursing up to 500 bookings a day made by online ticket agents known as "screen scrapers" who were selling the tickets to passengers at inflated prices.

It said screen scrapers were slowing down its website, preventing its usual customers from making bookings, and violating its terms and conditions, price guarantees and copyright.

Media reports said many passengers were angry after missing holidays as a result, and the European Commission wrote to Ryanair seeking information on whether the airline was breaking laws on passenger rights.

Ryanair provided the European Commission with evidence of four websites, Bravofly.com, Edreams.com, Volgratis.com and Wegelo.com, on which the airline's ticket prices had been inflated by 200 to 300 per cent.

"We are now calling on the European Commission ...

to take action to force these unauthorised, illegal screenscraper/ticket tout websites to desist from unlawfully overcharging consumers," Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary said.

Nampa-Reuters

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