by It was a long time coming, really. On a cold winter morning, Ryanair announced that it had come up with a new plan. Ryanair Holidays. All-inclusive budget holiday launched due to “unbelievable demand”.
That was in 2016. Just two months later, Ryanair Holidays were effectively stuffed into one of the baggy bin bags offered by the cabin crew towards the end of the flight. The Irish airline blamed its holiday software supplier for “screen scraping”, canned the whole project and hasn’t tied a blue and yellow ribbon around a fully organized holiday since.
Actually, it’s doubled down in the opposite direction. Not only does Ryanair not sell holidays, but Michael O’Leary has waged war on Online Travel Agents (OTAs) who do, branding them “rogue” and “scammers” for their mark-up, cancellation fees and charges baggage, which (before you call pot/kettle) in fact could be much more than Ryanair’s own fares.
Central to Ryanair’s campaign against OTAs is that they do not always provide accurate information to customers, making it difficult to issue refunds or flight updates. So last summer the airline introduced an identity verification system for anyone booking an OTA package holiday that included a Ryanair flight. A way to ensure the contact details are correct, says Ryanair. “Invasive”, and a complex barrier to encourage customers to book direct with Ryanair, say the OTAs.
The hullabaloo erupted earlier this month, when leading agents including Booking.com, Kiwi and Kayak unexpectedly pulled Ryanair flights from their websites, a move which would reduce the number of short-term passengers by 2 per cent, according to the airline. But even a small drop like this can mean a downturn in profits.
With that unplanned shortfall in mind, it came as no great surprise when Ryanair this week announced a brand new partnership with the biggest OTA of them all: Loveholidays, which Ryanair’s Dara Brady says is “legitimate” and “investable in the customer. ” (read, not pirates). Isn’t it just a knee-jerk reaction to that 2 percent drop in bookings? “It’s definitely not the answer to that”, says Brady.
Believe it or not, it is certainly a historic moment, as this is the first time that Ryanair has agreed to a formal partnership with an online travel agent. What is there for each party? Ryanair receives customer data, zero-marking declarations, and a large number of bookings. Loveholidays can offer its customers the entire Ryanair inventory, the luxury of avoiding the verification process, and a guarantee of the best possible prices.
A truce, of sorts. But what underlies this decision is a cold truth for Ryanair: if the business continues to be successful (it wants to carry 300 million passengers a year by 2034, up from 168 million in 2023) it will Tums for fully organized holidaymakers are needed on their seats. But these have to come from a third party because unlike the easyJet and Jet2 holiday strands, the Ryanair Holiday concept will not succeed.
They could try again, sure. And it wouldn’t be too surprising; Package holidays are on the rise as customers seek certainty about their holidays. Jet2holidays has set an extra 850,000 seats for 2024. Tui’s capacity has increased by half a million, and its offering to easyJet (launched in 2019) has almost doubled to 2.2 million seats.
But what they do offer, as well as the best online agents protected by Atol, is a friendly voice on the other end of the phone, and refunds and support if the plan doesn’t work out.
Ryanair, on the other hand, has built its brand around its no-nonsense approach to customer service. Last year, the airline charged an elderly couple £110 for printing out their boarding passes when they accidentally returned their passports to the airport. Ryanair was not unapologetic. The passengers (Mr and Mrs Jaffe, aged 80 and 79) were “correctly” charged because they “failed to check in online”, he said.
The British public are willing to lower their standards for an hour or two if it means a cheap flight. But will we cut corners for the holiday itself? Its service is bare-bones, with add-ons still central to the business model: the reissue fee for boarding cards is £20, the flight change fee is £45, and the name change fee is £115.
What would a Ryanair Holiday look like, perhaps? Surge prices for hotel sunbeds? Hourly towel fees? Scratchcards on request?
For some time now, with Booking.com and their peers grinding their teeth, Ryanair has little choice but to dip its toe into the world of package holidays with this latest partnership. Because yes, the British public likes cheap flights. But what we really love is going on holiday.
