IT’S a blow for Ryanair travellers looking for deals as the airline has been axed from popular travel sites.
The hugely popular budget airline has confirmed that booking sites like Booking.com, Kiwi and Kayak had all removed the carrier from their websites.
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Ryanair welcomed the fact they had been removed from the websites, reports Mail Online.
The carrier had warned customers not use the websites, who they criticised for adding fees to the price of a ticket.
Ryanair was also critical of “screen scraper” Flighbox. Screen scraping , involves using content from a company’s website to direct them elsewhere.
In a statement, Ryanair said: “In early Dec, most of the larger OTA Pirates (such as Booking.com, Kiwi, Kayak, etc.) suddenly removed Ryanair’s flights from sale on their websites.”
“This welcome removal may be the result of pressure from Consumer Protection Agencies or a response to the recent Irish High Court ruling, which granted Ryanair a permanent injunction against screenscraper Flightbox from unlawfully scraping Ryanair.com content for OTA’s, or in response to Ryanair’s KYP (Know Your Passenger) customer initiatives such as verification.
“In the meantime, Ryanair continues to make its fares available to honest/transparent OTA’s such as Google Flights, who do not add hidden mark ups to Ryanair prices and who direct passengers to make their bookings directly on the Ryanair.com website.”
A spokesperson for Booking.com told MailOnline: “Booking.com will not comment on the ongoing legal proceedings between Booking.com and Ryanair in the United States.”
Ryanair’s update showed it flew 9 per cent more passengers in December, at 12.5million, but its load factor fell to 91 per cent, down from 92 per cent a year ago.
The average number of empty seats per flight in December increased to 9 per cent, from 8 per cent in the same month last year.
The carrier was forced to cancel 900 flights last month due to the war between Israel and Hamas.
Ryanair flew 168.6million passengers, three-quarters more than the 97million it carried last year.
As a result, it swung to a pre-tax profit of £1.25 billion, compared to a loss of £308million the previous year.
The flyer, once famed for its 99p flights, has hiked fares by 50 per cent to an average of £31.05 in the past year — with fares still ten per cent higher than pre-Covid.
Ryanair’s accounts also revealed it’s now making just under £20 per customer for “discretionary services” such as priority boarding and reserved seating.
According to an analysis by The Telegraph last summer, Ryanair raked in £18billion from add-on fees in the last decade.
