is ryanair serious?

[HXdave]

news from a travel website:

Ryanair cancels bookings by 'evil' agents - Travel Trade Gazette (http://www.ttglive.com/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=61139&CMPI_SHARED_articleId=1061122&CMPI_SHARED_ImageArticleId=1061122&CMPI_SHARED_articleIdRelated=1061122&CMPI_SHARED_ToolsArticleId=1061122&CMPI_SHARED_CommentArticleId=1061122)

[old,not bold]

Had a call yesterday from a friend who owns and runs a large and very prosperous independent travel agency with a large and very prosperous client base...they ring him when they want to travel, because they haven't the time or inclination to wade through the airlines' laborious websites, with their repetitions, unnecessary "registration" routines, and constant attempts to trick one into buying something you neither want nor need.

He charges them £15, which they are happy to pay, for making bookings on low-cost airlines, and sorting out the optimum itinerary/cost for them, using whichever airline it takes to do that. He pays for the travel, and politely invoices his clients who pay withn 30 days. He also sorts out hotels, car hire etc, often using the airline's suggested supplier, but not always.

Ryanair has now contacted his clients directly, cancelling the bookings he has made for them on Ryanair. All they have done is ring him, sympathise, use some very choice kanguage about Ryanair, send him the money refunded by Ryanair, and ask him to rebook them on another airline, hotel, car hire firm or whatever was cancelled by Ryanair.

Which he has done. Not one of them has indicated that they will succumb to Ryanair's tactics; they just won't use Ryanair again, because they will continue to use my friend to arrange their travel, and he is not allowed to book and pay for their seats on Ryanair.

There is only one loser and that's Ryanair. Who cares?

BTW 1 We buy travel for our staff using a company card. I guess this means that we will have to stop using Ryanair, too. Oh what a shame. There's plenty of others.

BTW 2 One or two of my friend's clients said they are thinking of legal action for brach of contract against Ryanair, just for the fun of it, but that they probably can't be bothered. As most of them said, you don't sue crooks, you just give them a wide berth.

[corsair]

Embedded in the press release is the real reason for it.

genuine passengers using Ryanair’s website have been suffering long processing times and slower access because of the huge volume of information being downloaded from our website by these screenscrapers all over Europe.

I had a problem getting my boarding card from the Ryanair a couple of weeks ago. It was very irritating. I would suspect FR is prepared to take the short term hit for the sake of keeping the website working faster.

[adverse-bump]

I dislike ryanair, they are wrecking this once great industry.

however, I think this is a good idea.

I typed in my car insurance details onto on of these compare sites (confussed.com or something like that) and the cheapest Quote i got, including one from my current insurer was THREE times what the individual companies websites were saying.

So if these airline comparison sites are the same...

[old,not bold]

Gobonastick

I am pretty sure my friend said that his clients had been contacted....but I could be wrong.

Thinking about it, he would give the client's contact details to receive updates about the service, so that's whom Ryanair would contact, I would have thought.

But I don't know for sure, and he's out!

PS Surely, if so many people are accessing your information that your website is suffering, the solution is to improve the website, not kick off a lot of your customers. To most of us, a screenscraper is a marketing tool that some else pays for.

[DingerX]

Website efficiency is a red herring. If you've got volume problems, you can upgrade the iron, or you can turn off the volume. If they're trying to do the latter, the least efficient way to do so is killing the tickets issued: the volume doesn't drop immediately, ill-will is generated, and you'll have costly collateral damage. Screenscrapers don't have an infinite number of IPs, and blocking IPs, limiting the number of daily attempts, or just increasing the delay between requests will all work better than cancelling a bunch of tickets.
On the other hand, if I were running a carrier that saw a sudden spike in fuel prices, and wanted to shake the lowest-paying customers that were suddenly unprofitable, I might be tempted to pull such a trick.

[fishtits]

DingerX

On the other hand, if I were running a carrier that saw a sudden spike in fuel prices, and wanted to shake the lowest-paying customers that were suddenly unprofitable, I might be tempted to pull such a trick.

Nail - Head :ok:

[befree]

Nail - Head

yes this is another trick to raise money for MOL as many will now have to rebook with ryanair at a higher price if the rest of their plans depend on that flight. They will join the millions who would now never book with ryanair again.

The long term winner in my view is going to be easyjet. For all their faults they do make a effort to look after PAX. MOL seems to think their is a just more PAX to be had ones you have messed up the plans of the current ones. PAXs talk and ryanair will get hurt by this long term.:8

[20driver]

In the US Southwest blocks sites like kayak and orbitz from listing their flights or prices. Kind of interesting because all Kayak does is pass you through to another site to book. You want to check a Southwest price you need to go the company site.
Pretty sure they allow travel agents to book but maybe not.

20driver

[Re-Heat]

They are making a very ill-informed business decision if they think that the future of internet business involved limiting a consumer's choice, rather than permitting screenscrapers to expand choice.

Consumers typically hate being directed as to what to do - which is why the iPhone is so successful as a product compared to the rather more limited alternatives.

While I am sure that someone within the business truly believes that the increased revenue from forcing the website to be used and raising ancillary revenue exceeds the lost revenue from prohibiting these websites, I do believe they have miscalculated consumers' motivations for using agents as opposed to direct bookings.

You cannot force consumers to be luddites and use only your distribution channel, when greater choice exists elsewhere.

(for those who know what I am talking about - remember Porter wrote about pre-internet distribution channels in 5-forces...)

[racasan]

Look, Ryanair is just what it is.... a Piky/Essex moving machine.

[BEagle]

Cruel, racasan, cruel..........















.....but fair.

[powerstall]

Airlines right now... LCC's and Legacy carriers have to do whatever they can to increase profit and ticket sales... :ok:

[nickmo]

.....Like allowing the use of inflight mobile phones - Ryanair are launching the service from next week on 10 flights out of Dublin, so what will the access fees and charges be for that then?

Not a peep on their website about it...

[PAXboy]

"is ryanair serious?" Yes.
Are they at liberty to take this action? Yes.
Are the reasons given the actual reasons? Who knows and who cares?
Will it make any difference to their website response speed? No.
Why? Because their site will be 'scraped' and 'crawled' by several thousand search engines and research sites every day. This will be companies who carry out comparative pricing reviews for their competitors and others.
Will it make any difference to their revenue? Probably not one way or the other.
Why do it? To enforce their regulations and gain more news space.
Does it matter a jot? No. Some fewer people will book but many more will book with FR this year for all the reasons we know.

[jacob79]

Re-Heat,

My view is that in the long term this might not be a bad decision.

The fact that FR are a generally undesirable bunch shouldn't be confused with the fact that its a poorly run business becuase it isnt!

In terms of Porters 5 forces the interesting factor is the often low buyer power based not only on the low prices offered but the number/variety of routes serviced.

[SPIT]

We have some friends who go to Ireland quite regularly and so when they book they either have to book via a travel agency or with us as they HAVE NO COMPUTER. What arrangements has Mr O'Leary made for people who can't use a computer as they DON'T HAVE ONE ???:confused:

[MartinCh]

NOW THAT'S SOMETHING TO APPLAUD (IN ALL THE NEGATIVE MEANING)
Wow. I tend to think things can't surprise me anymore. There's always 'room for improvement'.
Yes, websites like SkyScanner etc would still use their site unless RYR seriously play with barring these.

I am like many others, using RYR because I have to on some routes and it's still reasonable TOTAL cost. They might be forced to include basic 'tax' on their search result screens, but there's more to come, naturally.

As for cancelling tickets lawfully bought on their website because of 'new policy', IT'S F:mad: LUDICROUS.
Does it mean I won't be able to book ticket only for my friend if she doens't have 'right' card and that I don't have to go over details with her? Seems so.
No agency, no screenscraper, just plain old passenger buying for friend/family.
Screw them idiots.

DingerX, you may be right regarding RYR's intentions on top of obvious effort to monopolise the market furthermore. I use word EFFORT as all they do is actually damage their reputation even more and will lose out on the market of people who log on to screenscraper and book first reasonable trip in line with their wishes either directly through the website or visit such carrier's page directly. They think it'll put people off using search websites and go directly to RYR only?? Dream on. Might work on small number of pax.

I shop for the best option for me. It won't stop me checking out SkyScanner and RYR itself if the info's not available.

What they did/are doing, is actually discriminating against people whose flights were booked on their behalf by somebody else. Do they really expect 20-odd group of seriously senior citizens to book the flights each for themselves when going on care home's annual holiday to Med?? OR whatever case it may be.

How do they actually sort the thing with one person booking more pax on one booking?? That should work. Are they going to look for the same name on card and of one of the passengers on the booking??

I'd gladly see some travel agency that got hit to do a lawsuit for damages or discrimination. Individuals won't bother. They'd just take the hit, swear and go on with life, appropriately changing their opinion and shopping behaviour.

One of many malicious disgraceful moves.
Just like that thing with sneakily introducing luggage charge under 'fair luggage policy', ie only paying when having luggage and increasing max weight. Then, after half year, quietly removing 20kg, going back to 15 but without such hooray. Recently, 'desk checking fee' etc. OK, if I pop in to see family, I may find it useful to skip one of the queues for desk check-in by printing boarding pass.
They advertised it as 'skip the queue, check in online if hand luggage only.
I don't really give a toss about having 'priority' etc (I travel alone), all I want is to avoid people pushing about and forward like bloody cattle in the departure lounge. Now they 'enforce' online check-in by charging checking in person, which is, 'strangely' enough, the only option when having hold luggage..

Well, maybe that's why some call it 'cattle class' (locos or economy with legacies).

There are travel agencies booking on behalf of people either because of convenience or pure necessity (old, IT illiterate, 'never done that', no PC, no card that is accepted, etc). They get RYR business in and may keep it free as part of other services or charge something, still win-win situation.

[PAXboy]

I hate to state the obvious but ... you are railing against the wind. MoL and RYR have made a fortune by not caring about anyone other than themselves. It may happen that in the future life will change and they will find that their attitude no longer works. I doubt it very much. They have no reason to care about anybody and will continue to not care. Use them on their terms or don't use them.

For the record, I loath everything they do BUT I admire them more highly than I can say for their clever exploitation of the market and for continually doing what no one expects them to do.

[merlinxx]

Only used RYR once, never again! I've been around in this industry since the mid 60s, and I have never experienced such a crap pikey operation like this lot. Have used Southwest lots in the US, great operation. Easy is a regular LGW/GVA/LGW and excellent for the money. Met MOL way back when he was sidekick for TonyR, prat then, TonyR was a Gentleman of the 1st order, he must be turning in his grave!

To quote his national slang "MOL the feckin goob****e can go **** imself sideways, his gums do bleed every 28 days, just coz he talks like one!"

[TightSlot]

SPIT & MartinCh

Guys - have a read around previous posts in this forum about FR to get a feel for how they operate. Booking with them is effectively riding on the back of a tiger: All is well as long as you can stay there, but should the tiger dislodge you, you will discover promptly that tigers bite. Many people avoid this situation by never climbing on the back of the tiger in the first place.

Ryanair are a hugely successful company: They have provided safe and cheap transport to millions of people that otherwise might not have been able to travel. There are no secrets with FR - everybody knows exactly what they are buying, and exactly the kind of company that they are dealing with. Every time a customer makes a purchase, they make a personal judgement call as to whether or not the deal is acceptable to them - in many cases, it is.

What I'm getting at is that complaining about Ryanair is about as productive as complaining about the weather, and about as likely to influence the final outcome - not to mention, about as interesting.

P.S. - Neither FR, nor any other airline, or indeed company of any kind, here or overseas, has any responsibility for providing alternate access to people that do not own a computer. If they did, every web-based service provider in the world would immediately close down.

[Basil]

As an ex airline employee and still international traveller, even though I have retired staff travel privileges (fear not - I can never get on ahead of a commercial passenger) I still look at commercial fares on ALL airlines.
If I absolutely HAVE to be there I don't use staff travel.
There are more occasions than you'd believe when the majors will give you a better deal than the LoCos.
Even if it's a little more, I'd pay and go with a major rather than be treated like a dog by ?????

[The Real Slim Shady]

Airlines, not just Ryanair, don't like screen scraping websites for the very simple reason that it gives consumers a choice by presenting all the available routes and fares in one package.

Once they have you searching on their website you are more likely to buy a ticket, even if your first choice of dates aren't available, or your first choice of destination isn't available.

For example, if you fancy a trip to the Xmas markets in Germany but aren't fussed where, you might look at STN - SXF but if the price is too high or the timings don't suit you are probably more inclined to do a quick check on NRN and HHN than to load up the easy or bmibaby sites and start all over.

All about stickiness

[WHBM]

If Ryanair are going to tell people who have got others to assist with their travel arrangements, like travel agents, that the booking are now void, even though the requested fare has been paid, and Ryanair are pocketing the money but refusing them travel, on the basis of some minor point in their self-written terms and conditions, then they are pretty certainly breaching the UK Unfair Contract Terms Act.

If those passengers bought tickets in the UK and are travelling from the UK, then the CAA are quite within their legal rights to act and shut Ryanair operations down from UK airports until they comply with UK law.

When will the CAA, in particular their Consumer Protection Group, stop going to work each day just to shuffle papers on their way to their MBE and their gold-plated public service pension, and start doing the job they are paid for and stamp out those who take such gross liberties with the law.

[The Real Slim Shady]

WHBM

Not quite so simple.

The terms and conditions form part of the contract; if you don't abide by them the contract is void.

[Globaliser]

If Ryanair are going to tell people who have got others to assist with their travel arrangements, like travel agents, that the booking are now void, even though the requested fare has been paid, and Ryanair are pocketing the money but refusing them travel, on the basis of some minor point in their self-written terms and conditions, then they are pretty certainly breaching the UK Unfair Contract Terms Act.I don't think that RYR are pocketing the money. I think that they have said that they will be refunding the bookings - see the article linked to in the first post in this thread.

However, the "Terms and Conditions of Travel (http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/conditions.php?culture=GB&pos=HEAD)" do say:-Reservations

All bookings for Ryanair flights must be made directly on www.ryanair.com (http://www.ryanair.com) or via a Ryanair call centre. Any booking you may make via a third party website or online travel agent maybe cancelled without notice or refund.Like you, I think there's a pretty good chance that this would fall foul of UCTA. But would it fall foul of UCTA if the provision were that a cancelled booking would be involuntarily refunded? I am not so sure that it would.

[WHBM]

The terms and conditions form part of the contract; if you don't abide by them the contract is void.
Not so. If life was that simple we could all write our own terms that cut across national laws, and there would be no work for all those well-paid contract lawyers. You can't just write terms that obviate what parliament has laid down.

So, over to you CAA.

[The Real Slim Shady]

Ryanair is an Irish airline and the authority is the IAA, not the CAA.

And when did the UK parliament legislate that non conformance with a contract term, which you have agreed to, would not render the contract void?

Which UK national law...not that it is enforceable if the T & Cs are under Irish Law....are you referring to? or is it an EU Law?

Please specify.

[jacob79]

Slim,

One of the basic tenants of contract law is that an unfair contract simply isnt enforceable (eg bank charges).

If FR were UK based and they cancelled flights without refund they would doubtless be targeted by trading standards.

Jacob

ps I see this as a decent move on FR's part.

[WHBM]

If you buy something in the UK (eg paid on your UK Barclaycard) that operates in the UK (eg Ryanair operating out of Stansted) then you can't say Irish law applies. It's a UK commercial transaction. End of discussion.

[preduk]

Slim,

Ryanair will have terms and conditions for each country it operates in subject to the laws of that country.

Thats why you select your country of origin on the site, so that the legal and currency changes can be applied to you.

Just because a contract has a term in it, doesn't make a contract legal even if you agree to it. You can't sign a contract on an illegal drugs trade and then expect to enforce it in court.

As Jacob says, this has been applied to Bank Charges were the amount charged is excess to what the law allows them to charge and as a result makes such an agreement voidable.

Jacob,

As said, if you operate within a country you must respect the laws of that country that is why Ryanair have had a number of fights with the Office of Fair Trade over their advertisments.

[Final 3 Greens]

The Real Slim Shady

I would stick to your day job, WHBM knows far more than you about this matter.

[The Real Slim Shady]

Jacob

The condition that the ticket has to be purchased via the FR website is hardly an unfair, or unjust, condition. Easyjet probably has a similar condition in the T and Cs. Is it unfair or unjust that FR have a 15kg bag limit while BA have 23kgs?

Preduk

Slight drift from the topic: no one is suggesting that the FR condition is illegal in the first place.

WHBM

I don't dispute that the purchase in the UK is protected by UK legislation, or that FR have to abide by national laws, regardless of which country they operate, but how many people actually bother to read through the T and Cs for anything when they make a purchase?

[jacob79]

Slim,

My feeling is that if FR attempted to retain monies relating to flights that they had cancelled due to a 'technical' breach of Ts and Cs then under UK law they could find themselves in trouble - its not so much the condition thats unfair as the penalty associated with it.

Totally hypothetical as I dont think they would try it and they arent in the UK (Irish Law isnt my strong suit).

Jacob

[The Real Slim Shady]

Jacob

I quite agree.

The cancellation does seem quite draconian: a more proportionate solution might have been to warn the ticket holders that future bookings made through a third party would not be honoured and make it quite clear that the bookings have to made on the FR website.

[newswatcher]

Tighslot & Others, Ryanair do provide a service for non-computer owners, who can book through their call centre, or have I missed your point! :confused: However, this process is fraught with higher fares, and often long queue times!

I believe the phone number may be on their newspaper adverts, but don't have one with me today!

[Michael SWS]

Tighslot & Others, Ryanair do provide a service for non-computer owners, who can book through their call centre, or have I missed your point! :confused: However, this process is fraught with higher fares, and often long queue times!

I believe the phone number may be on their newspaper adverts, but don't have one with me today!But, as you say, the fares are higher and you may have to wait for a very long time on a premium-rate line. It would be a lot cheaper just to pay a travel agent to book the ticket for you.

This is probably just another Ryanair money-making scam, ensuring that people without computers are forced to pay through the nose to book a flight.

[Globaliser]

The condition that the ticket has to be purchased via the FR website is hardly an unfair, or unjust, condition.I also find it hard to see why that would be unfair.

But the provision that if you buy the ticket through a third party, your booking may be cancelled without refund, seems to me to be very likely to be offensive. That may well be why the reports that I've seen suggest that FR is actually refunding the customers whose bookings are being cancelled for this reason.

[Globaliser]

This is probably just another Ryanair money-making scam, ensuring that people without computers are forced to pay through the nose to book a flight.I wonder how "people without computers" would make the third-party screenscraper website bookings that Ryanair are complaining about?

[VAFFPAX]

Travellers who booked through screenscrapers are being refunded and asked to go to the Ryanair website to rebook.

Ryanair is well within its rights to do this, and if travel agents/agencies wish to book Ryanair flights on behalf of their clients, they can arrange to do so with Ryanair. AFAIK Ryanair is not completely unreasonable. They've said in the past that they are amenable to arrangements. Seems like "unauthorised" agents are being bumped.

As much as it annoys you, the airline doesn't care because they will get other customers from elsewhere. I've made my dislike of Ryanair clear elsewhere on PPRuNe in the past, and the latest development only reinforces my view.

If you don't like what Ryanair does, there's Easyjet, BMI or the scheduled carrier.

:-)

S.

[MartinCh]

TightSlot
maybe I let off too much. It does make feel person better sometimes.

I don't mind if RYR announces they won't tolerate screenscrapers and do some steps towards it, but
I DO FEEL STRONGLY AGAINST CANCELLING (EVEN THOUGH REFUNDING original cost) SOMEONE'S BOOKING JUST BECAUSE REAL PERSON "AGENT" (business or not) WAS USED (IE ANOTHER NAME ON THE CARD).
Besides, if I use my UK debit card for EUR booking with RYR as it's out of Dublin or elsewhere in Europe

Yeah. We all know we won't start some grass root movement that would be pan-European. Yakka yakka. P:mad:ng into wind etc. Doesn't mean there should be complete silence.

I'd have booked good deal on the best (BTS-DUB) route available for friend already if I didn't spot this thread. Makes me think twice 'what if'.

Refunding, well, OK. But people will face extra cost anyway. Not to mention being :mad: off.

I should have a look at their TCs. Guess it's already amended.
Some posters have their opinion in line with mine. Cancelling properly bought ticket just like that. It's obvious RYR do it all for their own profit making reasons, but their 'hits' are not justifiable.

How's person that doens't have suitable card or access to one, going to make a booking? Only with friend/family member/friendly agent.
It's not about the usuring charges on the phone - you'd still need card to pay with.

Looks like I'd be saved as friend seems to have Visa Electron that has finally been made workable online over past year or two in Slovakia.

I can tell you, there are many folks in central or Eastern (in UK view) Europe that don't have the knowledge and some the right cards to book themselves.

If MOL hurts people and doesn't target fare search engine websites, it's despicable.

As for 15kg vs 20/23, well, it's airline's own thing as long as it's not legacy carrier allowing too heavy when there's connecting flight with another carriers that might have another limits due to health and safety.

I just pointed out one of many sleazy approaches.

Unless going to Spain for longer, I'll try to avoid hold luggage as it's easier without it, faster and cheaper with RYR. Saying hello to family or paperwork across Europe to do. I also do try to adjust my outbound and inbound legs according to my needs, thus avoiding RYR on one of the legs usually :-D