After months of open conflict, online travel agencies such as Booking.com, Kiwi and Kayak stopped offering Ryanair flights on their platforms in early December due to legal and regulatory pressures, the Irish low-cost airline said on Wednesday.
In a press release, Ryanair estimates, however, that this decision should not significantly affect its traffic or its pre-tax profit forecast for the financial year 2024. The percentage of empty seats per flight is expected to increase by 1% or 2% in December and January, he added.
Ryanair welcomed the decision of travel agencies described as “pirates”, which it accuses, in particular, of charging additional fees to customers or preventing direct communication with customers. According to her, this decision could be related to pressure from national consumer protection agencies, new customer verification measures or the recent decision of the Irish Supreme Court to prohibit the “screen-scraping” of their data or the illegal copying of data.
Overload
In June, Ryanair won a legal victory when the National Court of Barcelona recognized the damage caused by online travel agencies “to Ryanair and its customers,” according to a company statement cited by Air Journal. In fact, these agencies “do not have any commercial agreement with Ryanair and are not authorized by Ryanair to sell their flights.”
The courts had also recognized in the first instance that online travel agencies had a “common practice of overcharging customers by charging service fees”, while some of them “prevented Ryanair’s direct communications with customers and blocked refund payments by failing to provide Ryanair with correct customer contact.” details.
A few months later, Ryanair publicly published an investigation targeting “pirate” agencies, including Kiwi, which the company said were overcharging their customers by 344% for seats allocated at €5.50.
Source: BFM TV
