\n<\/p>\n
Ryanair has been fined \u20ac256m (\u00a3223m) by Italy\u2019s competition authority for abusing its dominant market position to limit sales of tickets by online travel agents.<\/p>\n
The authority said Europe\u2019s largest airline had \u201cimplemented an abusive strategy to hinder travel agencies\u201d via an \u201celaborate strategy\u201d of technical obstacles for agents and passengers to make it difficult for online travel agents to sell Ryanair tickets and instead force sales through its own website.<\/p>\n
The fine related to Ryanair\u2019s conduct between April 2023 and at least until April 2025, the authority said on Tuesday. It said Ryanair had prevented online travel agents from selling tickets on its flights in combination with other airlines and services, weakening competition.<\/p>\n
Ryanair said it would immediately appeal against the \u201clegally flawed\u201d ruling.<\/p>\n
The Ryanair chief executive, Michael O\u2019Leary, had decided to wage war on what he described as \u201cpirate\u201d travel agents, such as Booking.com, Kiwi and Kayak. O\u2019Leary accused the travel agent industry of scamming and ripping off unsuspecting consumers by charging extra fees and markups on ticket prices.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Leary was prepared to accept lower ticket sales as he tried to prevent travel agents from selling tickets, forcing their passengers to fill out extra forms supposedly as a security measure. The abrupt removal of Ryanair flights from agents\u2019 websites in late 2023 caused a drop in sales for the airline.<\/p>\n
The lower sales dented Ryanair\u2019s profits, although they have not prevented the Irish airline from rising to a record valuation of \u20ac31bn (\u00a327bn). That has made it the world\u2019s second most valuable airline, behind only the US\u2019s Delta Air Lines.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Leary \u2013 who is known for his combative and often sweary criticisms of airports, rivals and regulators \u2013 is planning to hand over control of the business to a successor within the next five to 10 years. He will be given shares worth \u20ac111m (\u00a397m) if he stays at the airline until the end of July 2028. He was already a billionaire on paper because of his shareholding.<\/p>\n
Responding to the ruling, O\u2019Leary said it was \u201can affront to consumer protection and competition law\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThe internet and the ryanair.com website have enabled Ryanair to distribute directly to consumers, and Ryanair has passed on these 20% cost savings in the form of the lowest air fares in Italy and Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cRyanair looks forward to successfully overturning this legally flawed ruling and its absurd \u20ac256m fine in the courts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The vast majority of Ryanair\u2019s sales took place through its website even before the battle against online travel agents. However, the Italian authority said Ryanair had been guilty of \u201cabuse of a dominant position\u201d and using its \u201csignificant market power\u201d in trying to stamp out the business.<\/p>\n
Ryanair\u2019s tactics included rolling out facial recognition procedures for people who bought tickets via a third party, claiming that was necessary for security. It then \u201ctotally or intermittently blocked booking attempts by travel agencies\u201d, including by blocking payment methods and mass-deleting accounts.<\/p>\n
The airline then \u201cimposed partnership agreements\u201d on agencies that 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\u2019 websites to link up with its own services, allowing effective competition.<\/p>\n
The competition authority said Ryanair\u2019s actions had \u201cblocked, 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\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ryanair has been fined \u20ac256m (\u00a3223m) by Italy\u2019s competition authority for abusing its dominant market position to limit sales of tickets by online travel agents. The authority said Europe\u2019s largest airline had \u201cimplemented an abusive strategy to hinder travel agencies\u201d via an \u201celaborate strategy\u201d of technical obstacles for agents and passengers to make it difficult<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[21228,4641,10227,2861,3061,1186,18577,3570,1670,6866,2460],"class_list":{"0":"post-38960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-256m","9":"tag-abusive","10":"tag-agencies","11":"tag-fined","12":"tag-limit","13":"tag-online","14":"tag-ryanair","15":"tag-sales","16":"tag-strategy","17":"tag-ticket","18":"tag-travel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}