In August 2008, Ryanair declared war on online travel agents. The low-cost carrier would, it said, ban and cancel bookings made through third-party websites, accusing them of overcharging customers, failing to be transparent and using fake email addresses to book flights.
There was outcry and denial from the online travel agent (OTA) sector, with companies calling the move to cancel flights “irresponsible and negligent”.
A defiant Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, said: “We will keep banning them until we get rid of those overcharging bastards.”
After 17 years of legal cases across Europe and the US involving Ryanair and numerous online travel agents and search engines, the airline seems to have done a U-turn.
Last week the company announced the latest of its “landmark” partnerships with Booking Holdings. Customers booking flights through Booking Holdings brands — which include Booking.com, Kayak, Agoda and Priceline — will now have access to Ryanair flights with the airline’s blessing. All legal cases between Ryanair and Booking Holdings have come to an end.
The deal is the latest in a string of legally binding partnership deals that Ryanair has announced over the past 18 months, bringing to 17 the number of OTAs considered “approved” Ryanair partners. Among them are Loveholidays, On the Beach and Expedia.
Some commentators have said the partnerships represent Ryanair bringing OTAs to heel. Others say they are a practical solution to ending lengthy litigation cases, and solving disputes around refunds R— Ryanair often refused to issue refunds to the OTAs.
The agents, meanwhile, have agreed to be more transparent in their pricing of Ryanair flights on their websites. They can add service charges, but cannot charge more for the flights. Ryanair will also have access to their customers’ data — people who book through OTAs will be redirected to sign up at myRyanair.
Some commentators have argued that the deals are anti-competitive, claiming they restrain the business of OTAs, and accuse Ryanair of “muzzling the market”.
Dara Brady, chief marketing officer at Ryanair, said the partnerships were good for customers. “We didn’t like how screen=scrapers were obtaining the data. They’d come in, scrape the system, have bots driving up calls to our back-end system and put added pressure on our infrastructure, and they were just scraping our data and then selling it to online travel agents.
“Then when those agents got that data, they were changing the flight price, changing the bag prices, changing priority boarding pricing. These hidden mark-ups were not reflective of the true price.”
Stephen Furlong, senior industry analyst at Davy, said that Ryanair investors were happy that the airline will stick to short-haul scheduled flights and online travel deals
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The partnerships, Brady said, were good for transparency and in turn consumers.
“While Booking.com has historically represented a small portion of Ryanair’s OTA bookings it is a global player in the OTA segment,” said Dudley Shanley, head of research and aviation and travel analyst at Goodbody. “The fact that Ryanair has signed a new partnership agreement with Booking Holdings is good news for the carrier.”
Andrew Lobbenberg, head of European transport equity research at Barclays, said such deals were “really beneficial for Ryanair because they have got more control over their distribution”.
Stephen Furlong, senior industry analyst at Davy, added: “Ryanair investors are happy enough that Ryanair will focus on their core USP, providing short-haul scheduled flights and doing these deals. They are sticking to the knitting of their core USP of being an airline, instead of being a package holiday provider themselves” — which the airline had threatened to become in the past.
In January last year, the airline announced that most online agents had stopped selling its tickets in what the airline called an “OTA boycott”. In truth, the boycott did not come from the OTAs. Instead, Ryanair had made it more difficult for its sites to be scraped. Initially, the airline predicted the move would not affect its traffic or profitability. However, it ended up suffering more than expected.
While competing airlines reported large jumps in revenues last year, Ryanair’s revenues rose by just 4 per cent, which it partly blamed on a “big drop-off in OTA bookings”. At the same time, the so-called boycott did not seem to do any harm to the OTAs.
Andrew Lobbenberg, head of European transport equity research at Barclays, said consumers were happy to pay a few extra pounds or euros for an OTA product
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Lobbenberg said Ryanair’s move, to cut OTAs off strategically, had complete logic. “I’m sure Ryanair knew it would cost them something, and it is probably the reason the airline had such a large swing in the delivery of unit revenues [this year] relative to what they were originally guiding last year,” he said.
Lobbenberg said that the “boycott” highlighted the relevance of the online travel agent sector. It showed that “there were consumers who were ready to pay a couple of pounds, or a couple of euros, more to use [the OTA] product”, he said.
Furlong said that “while the majority of people are still booking direct, Ryanair recognises that OTAs and package holidays are here to stay”.
According to Statista, the online travel market was valued at more than $640 billion (€547 billion) in 2024, and is expected to reach $1.26 trillion by 2032. Thirty-six per cent of travellers use online travel agents for booking flights, and 43 per cent use them for booking hotels.
One benefit of the partnerships for the OTAs could be that they finally get out from under the constant bad publicity that Ryanair has aimed in their direction.
After a 14-year legal tussle, Ryanair and On the Beach,a UK-listed OTA with a market cap of €531 million, called a truce
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The airline publishes a monthly survey “exposing” OTAs, which it has accused of overcharging and ripping off customers — charges wholly denied by the agents.
After a 14-year legal tussle, Ryanair and On the Beach, a UK-listed OTA with a market cap of €531 million, called a truce.
On the Beach had previously accused Ryanair in the High Court of conducting a smear campaign against it. The company said the continued litigation had become a “red flag” for some investors.
In its latest annual report, the company called the partnership with Ryanair “transformational” and a “major milestone”. It used the partnership to help it launch into the Irish market, with onthebeach.ie, and add 21 city destinations.
“The agreement provides On the Beach with free and fair access to Ryanair seats,” its annual report said.
While the British company appears content with its new partnership, not all OTAs are rushing to do a deal with Ryanair. A notable holdout is eDreams Odigeo, Europe’s biggest online subscription travel agency. On August 12, Ryanair accused eDreams of being the “biggest overcharger”.
Javier Perez-Tenessa, a Mexican-born, Spanish-raised businessman, set up eDreams in 1999 with the backing of private capital.
Over the next 16 years, the founder led the business through two leveraged buyouts, the first, in 2006, by TA Associates and the second, in 2010, by Permira. Various mergers and acquisitions in 2011 and 2013 led to it becoming eDreams Odigeo.
The company went public in April 2014, listing on Bolsa de Madrid, the Spanish stock exchange. It was valued at €1.5 billion. Last week it had a market cap of more than €1.1 billion — significantly less than Ryanair’s €26.7 billion market cap.
Perez-Tenessa stepped down from his role as chief executive and chairman in 2015. He has turned his hand to musical theatre, and composing music.
Today, eDreams operates in 44 countries and is thought to be the world’s biggest travel subscription company. Its chief executive is Dana Dunne, a former chief commercial officer at easyJet, a Ryanair rival.
The Spanish business reported record revenues of €718 million in the year to March. Its main form of income comes from a subscription model — eDreams has 7.26 million subscribers. In return for paying an annual fee, eDreams Prime members receive pretty decent discounts on hotels and flights.
A deal with Ryanair — which would call for the OTA to sell Ryanair flights only at the price set by the airline — could jeopardise that model.
Lobbenberg is doubtful that a deal can be done. “If they are anchored into the model of deviating from the rack rate pricing of the airline, then it’s directly at odds with the nature of the deal that Ryanair has done with other OTAs.
eDreams Odigeo, Europe’s biggest online subscription travel agency, is holding out on a deal with Ryanair and is the midst of a court case that alleges bullying tactics by the airline, which it denies
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“Unless eDreams walks away from its Prime membership model, it will be really challenging for them to do a deal with Ryanair,” he said.
An eDreams Odigeo spokesman said: “We unequivocally reject bullying tactics. That is why we are standing against Ryanair’s smear campaign, which is a clear attempt to coerce us into accepting abusive terms that would harm consumer choice and value.
“Our focus is on protecting consumers from Ryanair’s illegal behaviour and non-compliance. The courts have confirmed the facts: we offer cheaper prices than Ryanair, and their denigrating tactics are simply an unlawful attempt to compete unfairly.”
Ryanair and eDreams have duked it out in Irish, Spanish and German courts over the past 17 years, with both sides experiencing successes and losses at various times.
In July, a Barcelona court ordered Ryanair to retract its statements about eDreams, where it has called the Spanish OTA a pirate and accused it of defrauding people. The court found that the airline had carried out “an act of unfair competition by denigration”.
An eDreams Odigeo spokesman said the company “unequivocally” rejected what it saw as bullying tactics and was standing against Ryanair’s campaign, calling it a clear attempt to coerce it into accepting terms that would harm consumer choice and value. He said: “Our focus is on protecting consumers from Ryanair’s illegal behaviour and non-compliance. The courts have confirmed the facts: we offer cheaper prices than Ryanair, and their denigrating tactics are simply an unlawful attempt to compete unfairly.”
The airline rejects the allegations and has moved to appeal against the court decision.
eDreams is thought to be among a number of complainants who prompted the Italian competition watchdog, AGCM, to open an investigation into Ryanair in 2023. The inquiry has been a headache for Ryanair. AGCM published a preliminary view, saying that the Irish airline was “leveraging on its dominant position in several markets” to harm travel agencies.
It fined Ryanair €1.34 million for providing incomplete and misleading information during the investigation, and was also involved in a 2024 Competition and Consumer Protection Commission-led search of Ryanair’s office at Airside Business Park in Swords.
It is understood that the Italian authority is now investigating Ryanair’s recent deals with the OTAs, which could indicate that while Michael O’Leary has won many battles, the crusade may not yet be over.
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