Ryanair spat with online travel agents at turning point as it unveils new partnership
Ryanair has announced a new partnership with the online travel agent loveholidays, in a move which could signal a turning point in its ongoing spat with the industry.
The low-cost carrier has been locked in a bitter feud with OTAs (online travel agents), which it claims are scamming consumers by marking up flight prices and taking commissions on additions such as seat reservations.
The dispute has featured a number of court cases, with calls from both sides for regulatory action.
The deal, which is a first for the Irish airline, enables loveholidays’ customers to purchase its flights, seats and bags as part of a holiday package, at Ryanair prices.
“It guarantees that loveholidays’ customers will not be overcharged and they will have direct access to their myRyanair account for all customer info questions,” the carrier said in a statement.
Customers will also not be required to complete Ryanair’s lengthy verification process, which OTAs have argued is an attempt to get passengers to book direct.
“This is about customer protection from our perspective,” Ryanair spokesman Dara Brady told reporters at a press conference in London. Brady said the partnership was important as it showed “there’s a legitimate way to do business here.”
He added that a number of OTAs had been in touch with the carrier and that further partnerships were a possibility. “We’re certainly open to working with anyone that wants to do it legitimately with this sort of OTA structure of the deal.”
Al Murray, loveholidays’ chief marketing officer, said the partnership means “all our customers can take advantage of Ryanair’s low fares,” while benefitting from its choice of hotels, flexible payment plans and ATOL protection.
It comes after a string of OTAs delisted Ryanair flights from their websites in early December, forcing it to reduce fares and warn of empty seats. Asked whether the deal was a response to the move, Brady said “I don’t think so… we’ve been in talks for a number of weeks.”
He added: “It’s driven out of showing that there is a route for this to be done, not by anything volume related.”