EU seeks answers from Ryanair on ticket cancellations

AFP, August, 2008

BRUSSELS (AFP) — The European Commission has written to Irish budget airline Ryanair seeking information on whether it is breaking European law by cancelling bookings made on third-party websites, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Brussels wants to analyse "the compatibility" of the airline's new policy with EU law on passengers rights, said commission spokesman Antonio Tajani.

The no-frills carrier announced earlier this month that it would not honour what it termed "unlawful" bookings that were not made on its own website or telephone reservations line.

It said it would start cancelling such reservations from August 26.

It accused what it called 'screen-scraping' websites such as lastminute and eDreams of levying "unnecessary" handling charges, of...