When Michael O’Leary speaks, it never goes unnoticed. Known for not using wooden language, the man who was attacked last September in Brussels – and who responded to it with humor – decided to use humor and strong words to continue his fight against travel agencies in online and airline ticket comparators which resell low cost airline tickets.
As a reminder, Ryanair has been fighting for several months against these OTAs (Online Tourism Agency, Editor’s note) accused of scamming travelers. The Irish company believes that those who buy tickets via these platforms pay too much for them and recommends always going through the website of an airline, Ryanair or a competitor.
This is also why thousands of travelers have been confronted with checks when purchasing plane tickets on the Ryanair website. They are therefore asked to prove that they are not an OTA that buys tickets to resell them on its platform. If the first answers are not suitable, you must take a test… paid to prove your identity. A system which is not without its hiccups, with some no longer able to reserve tickets.
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At the end of January, Ryanair still signed an agreement with the “loveholidays” platform, the third largest provider of package holidays in the United Kingdom. The online travel agency will be allowed to sell Ryanair flights as part of travel packages. By doing so, customers are guaranteed to pay the ticket price charged by Ryanair.
A way for Ryanair to keep control of its sales, and traffic on its website, certainly. But this fight does not seem devoid of all meaning. The last offensive dates from a few days ago, with this video, therefore. Michael O’Leary pulls no punches and says he wants to “protect travelers against these scams”.
What scams? Here he is targeting the (paid) loyalty program of eDreams Odigeo which has 5.4 million subscribers. Wearing a pirate hat, in reference according to him to these pirate platforms, he showed some examples of Ryanair tickets sold more expensively on eDreams. Enough to give pause to those who buy tickets on these platforms.
But we also know that Ryanair changes the price of its tickets from one day to the next, so it is difficult to know the reference price of a ticket. A word of advice: you should always check the price of a plane ticket on several platforms. Logic dictates that it is cheaper to buy it directly, but the world of aviation is increasingly difficult to understand.
