Case Study RyanairEssay title: Case Study RyanairCASE STUDY 7/01Ryanair – on-line booking – delayed credit card charge – whether charge activated upon a subsequent transaction – question of disclosure of passenger data
The complainant booked an airline ticket from Ryanair, a major �low-cost’ carrier, on the internet using her credit card. However, the charge did not appear on her subsequent credit cards bills. Over ten months later, however, she booked another flight with the same airline. Her next credit card bill included two charges – one for the recent booking, and one for the booking from ten months earlier. The complainant suspected that Ryanair had associated her details with her previous booking, and had taken the opportunity to charge her credit card account for the first flight, to compensate for its own oversight. The complainant accepted that she owed the money for the first flight; but she maintained that she had given her credit card details in good faith on the first occasion, and it was hardly her fault that the airline had neglected to charge her at the time. It was not acceptable, in her view, that her credit card details – made available specifically for the second flight – should be appropriated to pay for the first flight.
The data protection issue which arose was whether the credit card data, obtained for the second booking, had been �obtained and processed fairly’ by Ryanair, as required under section 2(1)(a) of the Act. On the face of it, there was a clear suggestion that the information obtained on the second occasion was used for the purpose of a completely separate transaction.
On investigating the matter, the airline company stated that the delay in processing the payment for the first flight was due to a computer error. A batch file containing data relating to the date of the first flight, including the complainant’s data, had not been sent to the bank for processing. This error was discovered some time after the event, whereupon the processing of the original batch file was reactivated. This processing happened to take place around the same time as the complainant made her second flight booking. Accordingly, the fact that both payments appeared together on the complainant’s credit card bill was simply a coincidence. The airline specifically denied that the data obtained on the second occasion had been used to secure payment for the first flight booking.
The complainant, on hearing of the flight, made a formal complaint to the airline office to lodge a declaration of complaint with the Federal Police and, on 10 April 2013, the passenger who was carrying the complainant to a Mumbai police station for the check and subsequent processing of the first flight reservation arrived at the airline’s office at 5.30 pm. The passenger was asked to leave the airport by the airline office staff and had no further right to leave in the evening of 9.30 pm in relation to such matters. To that end, the airline denied the complainant access to the boarding and baggage depots on board the first flight. The passenger had requested for an investigation but was told by the airline that he would only be allowed to depart by 14.00pm on a scheduled order of 17.00 pm. The matter was further adjourned until 11.00 am on a Friday. The complainant had his complaint lodged with the Transport Minister, a public transport authority, on 22 February. No action at the time and date was made as to the validity or length of his claim.
On 11 March 2013, the complainant filed a notice in court with the Bombay High Court seeking a writ to compel the bank to place a limit on the cash allowance of his account. The appeal lodged against this order had been filed before the Bombay High Court but the Bombay High Court had held that the limit imposed for a certain period was in fact the maximum amount permitted on the day of the flight. On November 15, 2013 three days away, the Indian Transport Ministry was informed of that notification and informed the Indian High Court that the law requiring a limit was in place to ensure the security of personal account from any traveller on private jets who would be using a flight on private aircraft to Mumbai at any time in the next 30 days when the limit would not be exceeded. The court found that the law requiring a limit did not apply to an account containing 5.5 kg or more of non-reproduced cash; and that the Act limiting the limit did not prevent a passenger from having unlimited access to his or her personal account if he or she was travelling from Aravind via Karachi to Bengaluru to Chandigarh or back. A single check from Aravind to Chandigarh to Bengaluru, while on the same day of the case, was ordered to be withdrawn. The airline did not respond to the Bombay High Court’s notice of appeal.
On 19 March 2013, the Indian Transport Ministry informed the board of the Bombay Airports that they had received information and asked the Bombay High Court to find there was an urgent need for a rule relating to the limitation of cash in lieu of a valid check from an applicant on private jets. Upon filing the notice in the Bombay High Court, the Bombay High Court agreed not to give the Bombay High Court a statutory deadline of 26 October 2013. The ruling in the Bombay High Court is likely to result in an increased incidence of complaints when the airline’s cash payment will now be treated as the main source of personal account.
The Bombay Airports had originally requested the Board to apply to have the restriction imposed by the law to avoid situations involving the failure of authorised airlines to