What drove Michael O'Leary to take on Europe's 'pirate' hordes?

Despite his many publicity stunts, Ryanair’s boss Michael O’Leary has so far resisted brandishing a cutlass to repel OTA “pirates” in his battle against screen scrapers.

O’Leary’s hunt for pirate marauders instead came to a head in an obscure US courtroom in July, when he took on the might of Booking.com – accusing it of attempts to defraud by taking Ryanair’s flights and ancillaries and selling them at a mark-up without the airline’s authorisation.

Screen scrapers, in the airline’s words, use intermediate software providers to scrape Ryanair’s website, and then "overcharge" consumers for the air fares and/or ancillary services.

Ryanair said screen scrapers “mask these anti-consumer practices by making bookings using fake customer emails and fake customer payment cards”.

In the past six months or so, the airline’s numerous shouty press releases have presented copious examples of OTA websites inflating fares and adding a mark-up to seat reservations, baggage and other ancillaries.