DUBLIN (Reuters) – Online travel agencies including Booking.com, Kiwi and Kayak stopped offering Ryanair flights on their platforms at the start of December due to legal and regulatory pressure, the Irish airline said on Wednesday.
In a press release, Ryanair believes, however, that this decision should not significantly impact its traffic or its pre-tax profit forecast for the 2024 financial year.
The percentage of empty seats per flight is expected to increase by 1% or 2% in December and January, she added.
On the Dublin Stock Exchange, Ryanair shares fell 2.9% at 09:30 GMT.
The airline welcomed the decision of travel agencies described as “pirates” which it accuses in particular of charging additional fees to customers or preventing direct communication with customers.
According to her, this decision could be linked to pressure from national consumer protection agencies, new customer verification measures or even the recent decision of the Irish High Court to prohibit the “screen-scraping” of its data , or illegal copying of data.
Separately, Ryanair said on Wednesday that the average proportion of empty seats per flight in December had increased to 9%, compared to 8% in the same month last year.
The airline says it carried 12.5 million passengers in December, an increase of 9% compared to December 2022, despite the cancellation of more than 900 flights due to the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
(Written by Conor Humphries; Kate Entringer, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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