Airline Cancels All Flights Booked Through Third-Party Systems 410
TechDirt is reporting that one airline is planning on canceling all flights booked through third-party systems. This isn't the first time that an airline has fought against the inevitable wave of easier-to-search third party websites, but certainly tops the stupid scale. "We were already confused enough by American Airlines' desire not to be listed on the sites where people search for airfare, and easyJet's plan to sue the sites that send it customers, but Irish-based airline Ryanair is taking this all to a new level. Beyond just being upset about those 3rd party sites (i.e., sites that send it business!), it's planning to cancel the flights for everyone who booked through one of those services."
Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they aware (Score:3, Insightful)
STUPIIIIIDDDDDDD. way stupid.
Marketing gone wild ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't work out why they'd want to block 3rd party bookings now, especially as they've recently been told they actually have to publish the REAL TOTAL price of the airfare on the first page instead of that whole "99 pence" crap (with 99 pounds in taxes and airport surcharges added on the final bill).
You'd think they'd need all the help they could get. Still, they are Irish ... (dons his flameproof underwear ready for the inevitable politically correct flamers).
Ryanair are awful, though (Score:4, Insightful)
Them not being listed on 3rd party sites would be doing people a favour - otherwise you might accidentally book a flight with them or something. And you will not like it. You'll likely end up 50 miles away from your real destination at some godforsaken nowhere airport, and any money you "saved" with the cheap flight will be gone on road or train transport to your real destination. That or your baggage fees (ryanair often has a baggage allowance of 0. ALL baggage is therefore charged as excess baggage.).
If you must fly with an Irish airline for whatever reason (you're going to Ireland, say...), try Aer Lingus [aerlingus.com] or Aer Arann [aerarann.com]. They're often similarly cheap, and far less incompetent. At least until/unless Ryanair buys them and fucks them up.
With other airlines, you might even get assigned seating in advance!
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:4, Insightful)
Buy the tickets from their website directly?
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:4, Insightful)
Ever thought what would happen if EVERYONE had that attitude about stupidity? Free Markets might spring up and people would get things done cheaper! Oh the Humanity!
Re:One way or the other, it's asking for trouble (Score:5, Insightful)
True, this won't go well for them. And with fuel prices as they are, the airlines really don't need to be pointing guns at their own feet and telling Legal to pull the trigger. This move is nonsensical.
Air travel is an industry where the pricing simply makes no sense. The person sitting next to you on a flight may have paid $500 more or less than you did, for no reason. The newfound ability to use aggregator sites to compare prices was the one thing that made it bearable to book flights. Airlines should accept that the market answered their customers' demands without their help.
Maybe this is not so unreasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
After clicking past the blog speedbump to the actual article [independent.ie] I can see why the airline is doing this. The airline has their own website which handles the booking and also ties in other services like hotels, car rentals, insurance, and so on. These third party websites aren't going through an established booking system, instead they are screen scraping and acting as a front-end to the airline's website. This would be like a third party mirroring Slashdot's stories without Slashdot's advertisements, costing Slashdot revenue.
Using the airline's website in this manner is not only illegal but it also causes a lot of slowdowns and other problems for the people who actually go to the airline's website.
Now the airline is punishing the wrong people by canceling all the bookings done through the third parties. The right thing to do would be to allow the passengers to keep their bookings, but then sue the third party website. Yes, canceling the booking will cause more trouble for the third party sites but it will also mess up the customers and give them a bad impression of the airline, also hurting their business.
Maybe the easiest thing to do is to have some sort of partner network where they provide access to their booking system for the third parties for a fee while they mess up the screen scrapers with technology and lawsuits. This would make their booking system more accessible while providing a side revenue stream for people who don't use the airline's website and all the extra money makers on there.
Re:One way or the other, it's asking for trouble (Score:4, Insightful)
We don't have class action lawsuits over here. Ryanair would, however, potentially wind up the victims of an OFT investigation if they did anything on this scale that wasn't 110% above board. Ask the banks how that's working out for them right now, and you'll see what it could do to small fry like Ryanair.
In any case, this sounds so unutterably stupid that either there's been a fundamental misunderstanding and all these comments are misreporting the situation, or you've got to question whether O'Leary has much of a future there...
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:2, Insightful)
Guess I'd have to visit 2 or 3 Web sites of the actual airlines rather than 2 or 3 aggregaters like Orbitz and Tavelocity or whatever. What's the difference?
Re:Why?? (Score:3, Insightful)
The motivation makes sense to me. The decision to go ahead with is just, plain stupid though, will hurt in the long run, and ultimately brings no net gains. A travel agent serves the same function - are they going to start suing agents next?
Re:I am with Ryanair on this (Score:4, Insightful)
Cancelling the bookings may piss of some users, but it makes their point.
Not accepting new bookings is entirely up to them, of course.
However, cancelling existing bookings that have already been agreed is unethical. I can't see how it's not illegal on several counts, too: if money has changed hands, then a contract exists, and I wouldn't want to rely on any weasel words saying "we can arbitrarily cancel our side of the bargain without notice" holding up when disgruntled ex-customers start bringing legal actions to recover the cost of wasted hotel reservations, onward flights and the like. Even if the customers go after the third party booking sites that they personally have contracts with, those sites in turn are presumably going to hit Ryanair to recover the damages.
Re:I am with Ryanair on this (Score:4, Insightful)
they're in the business of flying airplanes. Where I get the rest of my services is up to me.
Also, if they'd just do a cost+30 model or something like that where all seats cost the same (instead of selling some for up to 50% more or less on the same flight, same service) then sites like these wouldn't be given such a huge hole to step in to.
The airlines create these situations themselves.
Re:Why?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ryanair usually has the lowest fares, even when you count in all their extra charges (credit card booking fee, checking in fee, luggage fee (different from checking in fee), airport fee (if you fly from Knock in Ireland, someone stiffs you for another 20 EUR or so just before you board).
O'Leary (Ryanair CEO) has never made good customer service a priority. Basically, he sees airplane travel as like bus travel: cut the price down as much as possible, headline it as even lower (i.e. not including extra fees), and pack 'em in.
His strategy, as it is, is to force people to come back solely on price, even if their experience was miserable. When price differentials in the plane business can be well over 100 EUR from one option to the next, this works, alas.
So, here in this news item he is punishing two people: customers who dared to book outside Ryanair's system, and screen scrapers who might be able to level the price visibility playing field (even though Ryanair usually wins here as it is).
He's relying on the fact that the low prices are such a big draw that he can afford to push customers around.
Flying Ryanair is a bit like taking a cheap bus driven by an unpleasant bouncer. It's usually the cheapest option (often by quite a ways) to get from A to B, but if you piss off the driver, he has no qualms about breaking your nose for you.
The -n business model (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:5, Insightful)
Stay home.
I'll drive. Wait, that's what I already do. Screw the airlines and especially the TSA.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:2, Insightful)
Ryanair works because they usually have the lowest fare, often by quite a large percentage (60% to 5% (seriously) or lower (!) of next competing bid).
That's their whole strategy. Customer service is not even considered, much less a priority.
Let me see if I get this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Airlines have been decreasing the services to their customers: Overcrowding planes, ever smaller seats, less leg room, fewer in-flight amenities, increased overbooking, ever more delayed flights and a myriad of new fees.
In addition, the TSA has made air travel more cumbersome with security theater (remove your shoes, don't bring liquids, etc.) with unspecified policies so that you never know if the policies in place when you fly somewhere will be the same policies in place for your return trip. For example, I know I would have been very upset if I travelled to London before the big liquid scare and had to put my laptop in the belly of the beast with the baggage gorillas when I returned.
In addition, the airlines also implemented a pricing policy for their tickets to try to maximize the price charged for each passenger. The whole "why sell a ticket for $200 if the customer would be willing to pay $500" philosophy. So customers began using services that would help them decrease their ticket prices because the airlines would overcharge them if at all possible. So now the airlines are offering the minimum service possible and are surprised that passengers want to pay the minimum amount possible for this service. When you abuse your customers for your own financial gain, the customers will lose respect for your company and when they have the power to stop feeding your greed they will do so. Once this happens, getting these customers to business with you again will be incredibly costly and may very well bankrupt the company. This is true for airlines and will also be true for phone companies, ISPs, Microsoft and the music industry. Ultimately, customers will punish usurious greed, it just may take them a while to have the power to do so.
This has its ups and downs (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this a good thing? I'm starting to think it's not. All this seems to be is just another set of middlemen pulling profit from other people's transactions.
But is Ryanair doing good by canceling tickets? Absolutely not. The customers bought tickets to travel Ryanair on good faith. If Ryanair doesn't like the aggregators, then they could bar future transactions. But by canceling transactions that were already made they've moved into lawsuit territory. If they want not to be included on the various airfare comparison sites then that's their right.
But punishing their customers for something that they didn't do - that's just plain evil. Ryanair executives should pay for this one...
Private jets and old biz models. (Score:5, Insightful)
The other thing is that private jet sales are increasing yearly. CEOs, mostly, are buying them up at shareholder's expense so they won't have to wait for security and fly with us regular people. Boeing actually has a 737 based "business" jet that has a hot tub. It's good to be King (CEO).
And some companies actually send their regular employees on the corp jet because it's just so much more efficient and reliable than commercial jets.
I think your right. Commercial flying is dead as we know it. I for one, will drive anywhere that takes less than 8 hours in a car. When you think about it: 1 hour to the airport, 2 hours security, 1 hour flight time to anywhere (assuming they're actually on time), and then another hour to where you want to be. That's five hours. For an extra 3 hours: I save hundred of dollars; I can use any fucking electronic device I want; I can say "bomb", "mom", "terrorist", etc..; I don't have some snot serving me water who thinks she's been made in flight goddess because of 9/11 and I better not question her authoritay!; I have plenty of elbow room; I don't have to wait in line to pee - just get off the highway; and it goes on and on. ...
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, competition can be real bad for companies. But ignoring it is even worse. These guys will crash and burn if they persist in this.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:4, Insightful)
Price discrimination is essential (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, they are paying a different price because they were willing to pay that price. That should be reason enough, but the situation is more fundamental. Imagine everyone on the plane had to pay the same price. Are you sure that there would be any price point which was profitable? Set it too low, and the plane would be full but the fares wouldn't cover costs. Too high, and you wouldn't have enough passengers. But a mix of passengers some paying more than others can be profitable.
People who book early want to be sure of the flight, and will probably pay a bit more. People who book last-minute must travel and will pay more. People who search on priceline probably care more about prices than people who go to the airline's website and book the most convenient itinerary. This mix increases the airline of maximizing their profits, by charging each customer as much as they will pay. It also increases the chances that there will be a way for me to buy a ticket at a price I like. I don't think it's unfair that other people are willing to pay more than I am for a similar service -- it's their problem. I also don't care that some people will not pay the price I'm willing to pay. They are willing to put in more effort into finding a cheaper flight.
Aggregator sites help reduce prices by facilitating comparisons. However, this has nothing to do with price discrimination, which the aggregators facilitate by giving the airlines another way to subdivide the market: people who search through the aggregator are quoted different prices than people who search on the airline's website, and both are quoted different prices than travel agents.
Re:Price discrimination is essential (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, they are paying a different price because they were willing to pay that price. That should be reason enough, but the situation is more fundamental. Imagine everyone on the plane had to pay the same price. Are you sure that there would be any price point which was profitable?
No kidding! That'd be like expecting to pay the same price as the person at the next table in a restaurant, or in line to buy a TV, or at a theater, or going to a football game. Just because they're getting the exact same service doesn't mean you should expect to pay the same! That's craziness and unlike anything else you spend your money on.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the GP meant:
Use the aggregator sites to find the cheapest airfare, and if you determine that it's Ryanair, go to their site and book the flight there.
Surely the aggregator won't have a cheaper fare given how much love they seem to be getting from this particular airline...
Re:Maybe this is not so unreasonable (Score:4, Insightful)
I block all the /. script and ads anyway. So I guess I am unethical. And so are people who use the Tivo to skip commercials.
Unethical is not necessarily illegal. There is no law requiring you to load advertisements or watch commercials. You might want to do so in order to provide some revenue to a site you enjoy but that's up to you. However, in this case there are relevant legal claims to be judged.
Using the airline's website in this manner is not only illegal....
Now IANAL, but I am reasonably certain it's not. The information on the public Internet and viewable to anyone. It's no more illegal that Best Buy sending 'competitive secret shoppers' to the local Circuit City so they can match their prices. As long as these site are not misrepresenting themselves (i.e. posing as customers, giving fake CC data), I don't see how the law would have any issues with it.
According to the case at hand [tjmcintyre.com], the relevant bit of law is:
Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases [europa.eu]
I'm not saying that I agree with the use of this directive in this manner, but it is a close enough fit use as a basis for suing the third party websites.
...but it also causes a lot of slowdowns and other problems for the people who actually go to the airline's website.
So can googlebot or any other app that crawls your site. The 3rd party brokers would have to be sending massive requests to the airline server to make any significant difference. And they very well may be doing just that. But any rookie sysadmin could easily block those request if they became a problem.
True, I'm just repeating what was claimed in the article as one of the reasons they are against the third party websites. Again this is something for a court to determine its veracity. If the sites are doing this then there is a good case that they are causing damage to the airline through their actions.
Remember that there are costs associated with running the airline's web site. Those costs are probably borne by the additional revenue of the other services offered on that website. The third parties are using the website and bypassing the extra items that fund the site, causing the airline to lose money. Eventually the customers, the third party sites, and the airline will all lose out when the airline is forced to severely lock down or close the website and sue for damages.
how about add-on sales for a budget airline (Score:5, Insightful)
Ryanair is a budget airline that makes little on each ticket and makes up for that by a couple of methods. one is of course volume but other very important methods are add on sales like car rentals, hotels, money changing, travel credit cards, travel insurance, etc.
Everyone seems to be thinking that these 3rd party bookings help ryanair, when they actually hurt them by removing the possibility of add on sales. this is not some american airline that makes(or tries to) their money almost entirely on ticket sales. Ryanair is much more like a gas station, they make little on gas but rake in their cash on soda and chip sales.
just some food for thought.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:3, Insightful)
They really don't. Quite often sites like Expedia will mark up the price by several hundred dollars.
I ended up discovering the aggregators are useless anyways. When I booked my last flight it turned out the cheapest airline (NWA) wasn't even listed on Expedia or any of the other "aggregators".
I suspect Ryanair is mostly upset about the screen with markup. If all the sites did was search for the cheapest airfare and forward you then there would be nothing whatsoever Ryanair could do about it.
Re:Price discrimination is essential (Score:4, Insightful)
If you rent, you might be surprised how much your neighbors pay- it might be $500 more or less each month, depending on what deals were available the week they moved in.
Many companies have different tiers of pricing for the same product or service, based on how much they can gouge you. Airlines just don't put marketing spin on it.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:5, Insightful)
Free markets rely on the myth of the well-informed consumer.
Have you met the "average" consumer? I think my case is made...
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:4, Insightful)
Free markets rely on the myth of the well-informed consumer.
It's not a myth, it just doesn't meet your standard of well informed, which I am assuming is based around a data point of one (you).
It is highly likely that the "average" consumer is only as informed as they feel they need to be to make a decision of how they spend their money. That is how the free market works. If a person feels, and the key word here is feels, that they have enough information to make a decision regarding the way they spend their money - they spend. That's it. Free market working. The more, or less, information you make available is not intrinsically attached to how educated a purchaser feels they are. There may be a correlation to how much data is available to how much research is done by a consumer, but it doesn't actually force anyone to do more research.
Your statement kind of alludes that there is a standard definition of "well-informed". If that was true, consumers would (should) have to meet that standard pre-purchase, and that is the antithesis of free market.
Not that I disagree with your assertion that the "average" consumer is ignorant to all of the implications and conditions of their purchases, but to extend that opinion to a reasoning that the free market fails is a flat out wrong.
Re:Dinosaurs continue to resist change (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? I would think "ripping me off" would be more like "not honoring a ticket that's been paid for" instead of something like "charge $5 extra for the convenience of using this aggregator which still has given the user a price which they've demonstrated their willingness to pay for". Heck, I'd be liable to book through Expedia/Orbitz/whatever instead of (say) United's site, even for a markup, just because they show me lots of fares next to each other (a necessity) and it's really nice to be able to pick a particular flight when I see it there.
There's a whoooooooooooooooole lot of business that works by charging people extra for stuff they can get cheaper elsewhere. Like gas stations which are closer to the freeway that have higher prices...
Re:One way or the other, it's asking for trouble (Score:5, Insightful)
This was like ten years ago, but I've had a similar experience. We were booking a trip to Israel and wanted to stop in London for a few days on the way over. Adding the London stop to the trip raised the price by thousands. So we said screw it, just book us straight through to Israel. The flight we got had a stopover in, you guessed it, London. So we asked for a 5 day "layover" which they were happy to do at the much lower rate.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:5, Insightful)
Correction, the myth of free markets leading to the efficency relies on, among other things, the myth of the well-informed consumer.
The presence of trade in the short term does not disprove a market failure.
Right, but the existence of tools to help correlate that data, especially free and easy ones, certainly increases the likelihood that consumers will.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:4, Insightful)
Take the bullet train.
Oh that's right, America is still stuck in the 1950s.
Re:One way or the other, it's asking for trouble (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell that to the hundreds of people who have lost luggage because it was on some other random flight :P.
Re:Price discrimination is similar to communism (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let me see if I get this... (Score:2, Insightful)
You obviously have never been on a Ryanair flight. Security theatre is matching your passport to the one you booked your flight on. Then you get a boarding pass. At some point, they open up the plane, and everyone just gets on. No assigned seats, just take whatever is open. 1 bag per passenger, and if its too big they make you check it. Sure, they may charge for everything once you are on the flight, but since the flight itself tends to range from free (yeah, Ive gotten it before) to 10 Euro, all plus set taxes, a flight on ryanair has never cost me more than $40 US.
As for being upset about traveling to London, it is terrorism tnat would make me upset, not the security theatre, as you call it. To be fair, I wouldnt take my laptop with me overseas (at least not on my flight). I might ship it overseas if there was some strange reason that I needed that specific computing device, but if I was traveling for such a long period of time that I thought I needed my personal laptop, I would be more inclined to buy a new one.
The airlines are not surprised that passengers want to pay the minimum possible. Thats basic economics - if something isnt worth the cost, the consumer doesnt buy it. Airlines actually hurt their bottom line by charging itemized costs, even if they do not adjust the basic price. Hear me out on this one. If the basic price does not adjust, customers do. They decide to travel with less luggage. They bring empty water bottles through security and fill them afterwards. They find new methods of transportation when the cost of flight outweighs the benefits. If saving 4 hours domestically isnt worth the cost, people will drive. If time becomes less of a factor due to cost, we may see boat travel pick up for overseas. It works fine in Africa, and its a hell of a lot cheaper too.
Here is where I disagree - this does not apply to phone companies, ISP's, or Microsoft. People are attached to their phones at the hip, and many cannot live without them. Texting is a basic example of this. 20 cents to receive a message from spammers, or a bullshit requirement to use my phone like AIM with an unlimited texting plan (I can't just cancel the texting service, because my cell phone is for emergency uses, and texting may be required in certain cituations). ISP's are at most going to get a slap on the wrist for violating their own contractual agreements with customers. It has nothing to do with piracy, but rather with our legal systems gross misunderstanding of contract law and customers misunderstanding of their rights under contract law. I may be able to explain why I my ISP is obligated to refund my monthly payments under a legal basis, but I can't get a judge or jury to understand the basics of it without them all taking a class. The ISP of course, will not admit to owing me money. Microsoft is so set in business that it will be a full generation before any company of true merit will try to exclusively use other OS. In dealing with other companies however, they will still need office to get work done. If they don't, they will not be able to expand. This isnt a monopoly by microsoft, it is a consumer choice.
The music industry, on the other hand, has worked quite well for me. I don't buy cds unless I see the artist in concert and know that they are getting the proceeds. I use a music service to gain access to new stuff, so that I can hear new music (new to me counts) before I decide if the artist is worth seeing in concert. Since its XM radio, by the time I am tired of hearing a song, they switch it out for new stuff (don't listen to the top 40 crap stations, and you wont have to hear the crap you would never buy anyway). The music industry's model is flawed, in that the majority of people are no longer willing to pay as much as they are willing to charge. The minority who are, however, are making them enough money to continue their business model. This isn't going to change. You don't need access to music you arent willing to pay for. Music is not a right, if you can't afford it, get a better
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:2, Insightful)
Dude, this is Ryanair. One of the shops with cheap airflight as their business model. In the era after peak oil. They are already crashing and burning.
Re:the WalMart of European travel (Score:2, Insightful)
I really don't like flying Ryanair, but you have to admire what they do....They've managed to find ways to charge you extra at as many points in your journey as possible...
A friend of my girlfriend just got back from a trip to Spain with Ryanair, and claims she was charged for eating her own food on the plane....Well the flight attendant described it as a charge for disposing of rubbish that wasn't theirs - I think it was about 2 Euros....so its a great way of discouraging people from bringing their own food on board. They also don't have seat pockets on their planes so you can't leave rubbish behind which speeds up the cleaning/turnaround.
I remember hearing Ryanair's reaction when they announced that mobile phones were going to be allowed on European flights....You could see the Euro signs flashing before their eyes....
I could think of nothing worse than being stuck on a Ryanair flight with everyone around you using their phones!!
At least they are upfront about trying to fleece you of all your money - Most companies try to do it without you knowing....
Re:Interesting... (Score:2, Insightful)
I hate to say this, but it's one of the thousand names of Nyarlathothep.
We're doomed.
Re:Price discrimination is essential (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that airlines are very good at wringing every last dollar possible from their pricing structure, and even that that pricing structure benefits the consumer in general, no matter how unfair it may seem that the person sitting next to you paid half of what you did.
But the market for airfares is by no means perfect or friction free.
Airlines have enormous fixed costs, and huge interdependencies in their scheduling system.
Suppose that airlines simply decided to raise prices some arbitrary amount to offset the cost of fuel - lets pick 40%.
After a 40% bump, demand will be affected significantly. Planes that were full no longer are, and a route that would be profitable with a full plane loses money when it is half full. Switching to a smaller plane is not an option in most cases, since they only have so many planes.
So you cancel some flights with the worst load factors. But now those people can't get to the connecting flight which is profitable, because the feeder flight is unprofitable.
You go through a vicious cycle of service cutbacks, all of which require that the fare go ever higher, to the point where nobody can afford to fly.
In a perfect market airlines would go out of business, removing excess capacity, and new airplanes would be produced in appropriate sizes. But those things take years to happen and the market is dominated by big carriers whose failure would have huge impacts on the flying public.
So airlines can't raise fares enough to fly profitably, which is why the tacked on fees get ever more absurd.