Ryanair says it has seen a decline in the number tickets it is able to sell since major online booking sites removed the budget airline’s flights.
In early December, the largest online travel agents, including Booking.com and Kiwi, “suddenly removed Ryanair flights from their websites”.
According to the airline, while bookings on these sites only represented a “small portion” of Ryanair’s total, their sudden removal affected its load factors by “1%-2%” between December and January and “would soften short-term returns”.
The load factor is the percentage that an airline can sell for each flight. Ryanair responded to the situation by offering more low-priced tickets directly to customers through its website.
The airline announced in December a 10% off sale on over 400,000 tickets for travel from January to the end of the month.
Ryanair has said that the removal of their flights from travel websites will not have a material impact on its financial projections for the full year, either in terms of passenger numbers or profit.
The company said it welcomed the move made by the websites. It claimed that many overcharged customers with additional fees.
“Ryanair is responding to this welcomed removal of our flights on OTA [online travel agency] websites by lowering fares as necessary to encourage all travellers to book directly through Ryanair.com, where they will always get the best fares, without OTA overcharges or fake contact information, or any other pricing/refund schemes.”
Ryanair did not specify the reasons for its removal, but suggested that it could be due to a recent Irish High Court ruling which granted Ryanair a permanent ban on screenscraper Flightbox “unlawfully scraping Ryanair.com contents” for online travel agencies.
The company stated that its flights are still available on certain sites, including Google Flights. It said these sites “does not add any hidden marks-ups” to their prices and directs consumers to complete bookings on the company’s website.
The airline published its latest update on Wednesday. It showed that the number of passengers increased by 9% in December compared to last year, but its load-factor fell by 1%.
Last month, more than 900 Ryanair flight cancellations were made due to the Israel-Gaza conflict and the suspension flights to Tel Aviv as well as neighbouring Jordan.
The update comes in the midst of a long-running dispute that has existed between Ryanair, online booking sites and Booking Holdings. In the US, the airline filed a lawsuit against Booking Holdings and its subsidiaries including Kayak Agoda, Priceline and Booking.com.