Ryanair underlined its refusal to allow third party selling of its flights at a travel conference in London yesterday, saying the move would impact its customers negatively and fly in the face of its goal to drive down fares.
The carrier’s head of sales and marketing Sinead Finn told delegates at the Eye for Travel Travel Distribution Summit conference in Islington that Ryanair felt allowing online travel agents and GDSs to sell its flights would end up with the driving up of net rates and higher prices for the consumer.
She said: “Our strategy is to keep the costs down and pass that onto the consumer. That’s why we will double growth by 2012 and carry 83m passengers.”
She told the conference that she believed only the fittest will survive as the credit crunch starts to bite deeper.
“We are an industry under pressure. We are not in a good situation over the next two years. Large travel websites with competitive prices, selling main products and ancillary services are the ones that will get through this period.”
The business decision is in contrast to rival easyJet which now sells through the GDSs, although it charges €7.50 per sector for bookings and only sells through travel management companies.
TMCs have put up resistance to the charges and Easyjet is due to meet with the Guild of Travel Management Companies and the Institute of Travel Managers today to discuss their concerns.
Both Ryanair and easyJet, however, actively try to stop screenscraping from third parties.
By Dinah Hatch
