People reach this page with a few questions. Can you scrape Ryanair, and does it have an API? Why does it ask some passengers to verify their booking? And is it cheaper with a VPN? This page answers from the court record of Ryanair v. Booking.com in Delaware, from Ryanair and Booking Holdings releases, and from the Ryanair robots.txt file. We read all of them on 28 September 2026. The short answer: the court held that the public pages of ryanair.com need no authorization under US computer law, but the myRyanair payment page does. The jury verdict against Booking.com fell in 2025 because the proven loss stayed under $5,000. The two companies became partners in August 2025.
The case against Booking.com
Ryanair filed the case on 4 September 2020 against five defendants: Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, KAYAK and Booking Holdings. It sued under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The complaint called their use of the site "screen scraping". It defined that as using an "automated system or software . . . to extract any data from [Ryanair’s] website for commercial purposes".
The claims against Booking Holdings, Priceline and Agoda were dismissed on 26 June 2024, and the claims against KAYAK on 18 July 2024. That left Booking.com. After a four-day trial, the jury found for Ryanair on two counts. It awarded $5,000 as the "actual economic harm caused by Booking.com violating the [CFAA]".
| date | step | record |
|---|---|---|
| 4 September 2020 | Ryanair files the case | complaint |
| 18 July 2024 | the jury finds for Ryanair, $5,000 | verdict |
| 25 July 2024 | judgment on the verdict | Dkt. 460 |
| 22 January 2025 | the verdict is overturned | Dkt. 516 |
| 31 January 2025 | amended judgment for Booking.com | Dkt. 518 |
| 26 August 2025 | the appeal closes; the partnership is announced | Third Circuit 25-1374 |
On 22 January 2025 the judge granted Booking.com judgment as a matter of law. The CFAA needs at least $5,000 of loss in one year. The court found that the costs Ryanair proved came, "at most, to only $2,457.72". The amended judgment of 31 January 2025 reads: "The defendant is found not to have violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act". Ryanair appealed in February 2025. The appeal record closes on 26 August 2025, the day the two companies announced their partnership.
What the court said about public pages
Before the trial, the court ruled on what "without authorization" means under the CFAA. Its reason, as quoted in the opinion of January 2025: "any user can access any page on Ryanair’s website without any prior authorization (except for the final payment page of the myRyanair portion of the website)". So access to the public pages was not "without authorization".
The payment page was different. It "uses an authorization scheme that permits some users to create accounts but blocks others". Using it after a cease-and-desist letter could count as access without authorization.
This is one US ruling on one statute, the CFAA. It is not a ruling on the Ryanair terms of use or on EU law, and we could not read either on 28 September 2026.
Shield, and what Ryanair counted as loss
Ryanair told the court it had "developed a program called Shield that blocks unauthorized third parties such as the Defendants from scraping the Ryanair Website and selling Ryanair inventory". A Ryanair data scientist testified that "over 99 percent" of the purchases Shield blocked were attempted purchases by bots controlled by online travel agents.
For March 2022 to February 2023, Ryanair claimed about $177,000 of losses from Booking.com. The court accepted only part of the Shield costs.
| cost Ryanair claimed | amount |
|---|---|
| online verification | $9,912 |
| customer service agents | $112,000 |
| hosting Shield | $5,361.67 |
| payments to Navitaire | $49,234 |
A Ryanair witness gave the numbers behind these claims. Ryanair sold 78,300,879 flights in that year, and 23 percent were booked through online travel agents. Booking.com made 2.8 percent of those agent bookings, or 518,826 flights.
The approved OTA route
Ryanair sells through travel agents it approves. On 29 January 2024 it announced a deal with Kiwi.com, which gives Kiwi "direct access to the Ryanair.com website without screenscraping". Kiwi also agreed to pass on accurate customer contact and payment details. As a result, "Kiwi customers will no longer need to complete Ryanair’s customer verification process". Customers of travel agents Ryanair has not approved still have to complete it.
On 26 August 2025 Ryanair announced a partnership with Booking Holdings: Booking.com, KAYAK, Priceline and Agoda. Their customers get access to their myRyanair account without that verification. Booking Holdings, the release says, "joins Ryanair’s extensive list of “Approved OTA” partners". The list names loveholidays, lastminute, Travelfusion, Paxport, Kiwi, On the Beach, TUI, El Corte Ingles and Expedia.
What robots.txt asks
The Ryanair robots.txt file allows crawlers in general. It then disallows the flight search pages, the booking and trip pages, boarding passes and everything under /api. We found no public API documentation from Ryanair. For a travel business, the route to Ryanair fares that the releases describe is a partnership.
VPNs and fares
Searches such as "ryanair vpn cheaper" ask whether fares change with the visitor country. We found no Ryanair statement about that, and we did not test fares from different countries. The robots.txt file asks crawlers to stay out of the flight search pages, so we did not run any searches.
If you use proxies for other work
Nothing on this page routes Ryanair traffic through a proxy. For the wider sector, see travel fare aggregation and our pages on Southwest, Google Flights and Skyscanner. For the basics, see what a residential proxy is, rotating and static residential proxies, and our guides to Playwright and Puppeteer. Our free proxy list and proxy checker cost nothing. Our residential, ISP and mobile proxies are on the pricing page, and residential traffic starts at $0.44/GB.
The limits of this page
We did not search fares, log in or book on ryanair.com. The court record is American and turns on the $5,000 loss rule of the CFAA. It is not a ruling on EU law or on the Ryanair terms. On 28 September 2026 our server could not read two sources: the 2015 judgment of the EU Court of Justice in Ryanair v PR Aviation, and the Ryanair terms. Those pages render by script or answered with a check, and the Internet Archive answered 429. The redacted jury verdict is a scanned image, so we rely on the opinion for its content. This page is due for a check by 28 December 2026.
Sources
We read every source below on 28 September 2026.
- United States District Court for the District of Delaware, Ryanair DAC v. Booking.com B.V., No. 20-1191: memorandum opinion and order of 22 January 2025, judgment on the verdict of 25 July 2024, amended judgment of 31 January 2025, and the docket with the dismissals of June and July 2024.
- United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Ryanair DAC v. Booking Holdings Inc, No. 25-1374, filed 3 March 2025, closed 26 August 2025.
- Ryanair, Ryanair agrees new partnership deal with OTA Kiwi.com, 29 January 2024, and Ryanair and Booking Holdings sign partnership agreement, 26 August 2025.
- Booking Holdings, Ryanair and Booking Holdings sign partnership agreement, 26 August 2025.
- Ryanair, robots.txt.
More pages in this series: proxies for Southwest, proxies for Google Flights and travel fare aggregation.
