Blog homeRyanair seem to be attracting all sorts of negative comments about their recent move against screenscrapers (and that they plan to cancel various bookings made via 3rd party websites). Here are a few I have found:
- “foolish” “unreasonable”: ABTA – The Travel Association [Source: BBC]
- “PR disaster” – Paul Richer, Genesys [Source: TTG magazine 8th August]
- “a despicable thing to do” – Simon Evans, Chief Executive, Air Transport Users Council [Source: Travel Weekly]
- …. I could go on…. lots more out there
While Ryanair have referred to companies who are screenscraping and reselling their flights as “evil”.
However, lets put this into perspective – this is pretty much what Ryanair have to do in order to stay in business. No business has a right to exist – not airlines – not travel agents. Ryanair need the ancillary revenue from people coming via their website and sales via 3rd parties don’t generate that revenue.
3rd party travel websites have been “gaming” the Ryanair website for years. No you can’t block screenscrapers because they look, in essence, just like consumers using home computers. Its just not easy to block this - and screenscrapers always stay one step ahead.
For example I know of one leading, London based, travel technology company who has a team, based in the Indian sub-continent, who are responsible for keeping their screenscraping systems up and running. If the object website changes their front end code – or blocks a channel – they – within a few moments – have recoded their “bots” to work around the new changes. This is a well known technology company that will remain nameless because I have no physical evidence to back this up…. but I was in a meeting where their system, which they sell to a number of UK based tour operator and travel agency clients, was described to me. [If I did have evidence I would be NDAd anyway!]
Its not just travel technology companies who are causing problems for Ryanair and other suppliers. Go and read this comment on TravelMole – where Jon Hewson, Managing Partner of VirtuallyThere (Canada). He openly admits using free email services such as Googlemail to create “fake” email addresses on behalf of customers which he then uses to make bookings on supplier websites (although he doesn’t mention Ryanair specifically).
So everyone is as bad as each other….. I hardly think that travel agents – and associations representing travel agents (or consumers) can get all excited about what Ryanair are doing. This is a defensive move. I would be fed up if companies were screenscraping my website too.
The only people I feel sorry for are the consumers. Sorry consumers.
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Thanks for the article. What you did not convince me of is that “sales via 3rd parties don’t generate that revenue”. Everyone who makes a booking via screenscraping in the end has to pay Ryanair the exact same price (or an additional surcharge) as a regular customer. Hence I would say, Ryanair earns the same amount from such a booking (and maybe the 3rd party will earn a surcharge). Even more, companies like the one mentioned above do some kind of marketing for Ryanair, and it might in fact even help Ryanair to grow their share of the market. What is your position about all of this?
Hi Peter,
Thanks for your note
Ryanair may as well give their flights away – as the real money is made from selling hotels, car hire, etc. i.e. the revenue they care about isn’t the flight income.
I am not sure how I am going to convince you of that as I don’t have their financial figures
There is a good blog post about Ryanair’s current financial position here
All is fare at Ryanair
One quote from that blog is “Ryanair is struggling to maintain is business model with oil at the current price”.
If Ryanair are struggling to stay in business – they may not care who they upset right at the moment. They just need to survive.
Thanks for your clarification. Good point, so they miss making money from upselling and cross selling. I guess I have to agree with you on that.
Hi,
Ryanair makes money on ticket sales – a dynamic yield management system selling each ticket at the right price taking into account offer (seats left on the flight) and demand (time gap between moment of booking and flight departure) . They also make more and more money on ancillary sales. Add to this a rigourous cost cutting philospophy, and a “any rumour around the brand is good” marketing strategy and you have a rough idea of the Ryanair business model.
Until yesterday, intermediate parties (travel agents and the rest of the bunch) tried to beat the system, bulk buying the cheapest tickets and selling them at a higher margin when the Ryanair yield driven prices moved upwards.
These third parties should think twice. Why don’t they just buy and sell Ryanair tickets at zero margin, building in the margin on the perfect match between client and land arrangement: hotel, transfer, excursion, restaurant selection…
This would allow them to add value, this would allow Ryanair to add value and this would allow the travel agents to move away from a much bigger danger: the direct selling activities of their major suppliers, the big tour operators who are trying to push the independent travel agents from the table.
For the Belgians among you: read more in http://www.travolon.com, my travel industry blog> There are some contributions in English too, though.
Jan