Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

https://archive.ph/eipFD

"O’Leary accused the travel agent industry of scamming and ripping off unsuspecting consumers by charging extra fees and markups on ticket prices."

That is ... pretty rich.

A couple of years ago I was going to go see my brother in the UK who lived near Stansted. As such Ryanair would have been the most convenient airline. The shere number of dark patterns I encountered trying to book the ticket was such that when I got to the payment page and they tried to coax me into using my local currency instead of GBP and hid a £20 spread in the exchange rate I rage quit. I should have known better even then, but now I will only use them if I have literally no other choice. With luck that means "never."

I'm always happy to see the various EU competition authorities pushing back on this kind of thing.

I have found myself to be the only person in many conversations defending Ryanair. People complain about legroom, everything being a paid add-ons, you name it. The key is to treat it like a bus that takes you from A to B, sometimes cheaper than a bus, not some sort of luxury experience. The times when flying was luxury is over. And I benefitted from it greatly as a student, so have many shown by Ryanair's passenger numbers.

And I am also always confused about the non-transparency that people mention about their fees. When you do the checkout, you select the services you want and pay for those. There used to be a time when other airlines would have a lot of things included in the basic ticket price, but that's not the case anymore, so it's not different. And I think this was an inevitable in an industry with small profit margins where price differentiation would bring gains.

This is an odd story. Ryanair doesn't pay commission, so these resellers make money by charging extra fees to unsuspecting customers. I don't know why Ryanair wants to stamp out this practice (which doesn't cost them anything and brings extra sales), but I don't see why they should be prevented from stamping it out.

Just before Covid when everything was cancelled I booked some tickets through Kiwi and it was the worst decision - I spent year (!) getting my money back. I'm not saying Ryanair is a good company, but for their flight (i.e. one of those which I booked through Kiwi) they reimbursed me immediately. The second flight was EasyJet and they said they already sent the refund to Kiwi, while Kiwi said they got nothing. In the end it was Kiwi who sent me the rest, and in my view they truly are parasites (they also got a Covid loan from the Czech government). Maybe in the days of Skypicker when their search engine was good they provided some value, but nowadays I advise everyone to avoid them.

It is of course ironic since we're talking about Ryanair here but I'm genuinely curious as to why it's abusive to determine that your product/service must be sold via your platform?

Legitimately welcoming discussion here as I'm keen to hear the other side.

Hmm the guardian has gone "accept tracking or subscribe".

I wonder how that works out for them.

I also wonder if the time is ripe for some company to disrupt advertising by simply doing what google did on launch in 2000.

They'll contest it and won't pay it. Post again when they actually transfer the money lol

"Dear passengers, please have your credit card ready for the landing."

TLDR

"Ryanair’s tactics included rolling out facial recognition procedures for people who bought tickets via a third party, claiming that was necessary for security. It then “totally or intermittently blocked booking attempts by travel agencies”, including by blocking payment methods and mass-deleting accounts. The airline then “imposed partnership agreements” on agencies which banned sales of Ryanair flights in combinations with other carriers, and blocked bookings to force them to sign up. Only in April this year did it allow agencies’ websites to link up with its own services, allowing effective competition. The competition authority said Ryanair’s actions had “blocked, hindered or made such purchases more difficult and/or economically or technically burdensome when combined with flights operated by other carriers and/or other tourism and insurance services”.

[dead]

Big companies often try to lock down distribution where they can, especially when margins are tight and competition is fierce. But trying to strong-arm OTAs isn’t a smart long-term strategy. It hurts consumer choice and pushes prices up for travelers who just want easy comparison and booking.

From a business perspective, I get why Ryanair would want more direct control - fewer fees, more customer data, stronger branding. But the moment you start restricting where people can buy your product, you step into antitrust territory and risk killing the very demand you’re trying to secure. Travel is already stressful enough without making it harder to find good deals. For most people, accessibility and transparency matter more than who gets to capture the commission. Punishing intermediaries almost always ends up punishing the customer instead.

So from a fairness and consumer standpoint, this fine seems justified. And as a frequent traveler, I just want all the options, not gatekeeping.