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."
One way or the other, it's asking for trouble (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:1, Interesting)
What if all airlines take up a similar policy? What are you going to do then, hm?
I am with Ryanair on this (Score:5, Interesting)
"The real issue here in our view is that Ryanair is concerned about losing out on the sale of other services such as travel insurance, hotels, car hire and to stop this they want to prevent consumers from using comparison websites"
I think they have a point. Maybe not a good one, but who are we to decide for them? They want customers to buy Ryanair Tickets from the Ryanair Website, and it's their right to "enforce" this IMHO. Cancelling the bookings may piss of some users, but it makes their point.
I think this is a bit like direct linking an image from a website, when the creator explicitly asked not to do it.
And on top of it lastminute.com, v-tours, tui and Opodo usually charge more for the Tickets than what they would normally cost: "Mr O'Leary also stressed that passengers were "getting stiffed" by these websites as their prices were invariably higher than those available on ryanair.com".
Re:I am with Ryanair on this (Score:5, Interesting)
Deciding to no longer allow ticket sales through third parties is one thing (though I would still argue it is a bad move). But how can they get away with not honoring tickets already sold?
Then again, it may be just for the publicity... (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember, this is the outfit that promoted its Business Class service with a You Tube video entitled "Beds and Blowjobs": here's the official RyanAir press release from June '08 [ryanair.com] (work safe)
Comparison sites bad for business (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd heard that a lot of these 3rd party booking sites weren't using any sanctioned API, but scraping the airline's own retail sites for fares and proxying customers' credit card details etc. for making bookings, then charging a premium for the flight. By cancelling these fares the airlines are rocking confidence in comparison sites, and obviously pushing some business away, but I don't think they're opening themselves to lawsuits since customers didn't book with them direct. Only the booking sites might have a case against them, and that seems unlikely given the hoops they had to jump through to make the booking in the first place!
Re:One way or the other, it's asking for trouble (Score:5, Interesting)
And being a reasonable human being, you only saw those two options. However, these dips are taking the third unmentioned option.
They are refunding the WEBSITES directly and making it their problem to get the money back to the customer who bought the ticket. The stated goal of "We want to cause as much chaos for the [websites] as possible,"
Unless this is the only airline servicing an area, I say it's time for them to suddenly find out how quickly their bottom line would drop if they just suddenly disappeared from said sites.
the WalMart of European travel (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally love the true capitalistic cut-throat cunning that RyanAir has employed to keep costs low and profits high.
-- They modeled Southwests early success, but stayed much more true to mission as a budget carrier.
--They intentionally use stairs to the tarmac at the plane's doors in Dublin to save on maintenance (and surreptitiously discourage disabled people from flying with them to shorten the amount of time the plane is on the ground).
--They have brand-spanking new planes that were purchases shortly after 9-11 at pennies on the dollar because Boeing was fearing utter calamity.
--They make a ton of money from people buying early for nothing tickets and then not showing up.
--They are militantly union-busting and have fired striking workers before, and will do it again.
Basically in American terms, they are the WalMart of travel -- they have revolutionized European air travel and made it much more accessible to the average person. Their customers realise it's completely no-frills. I personally find the little jingle that plays when disembarking to be the funniest.
The good ole' days of flight are over... (Score:5, Interesting)
... and they ain't coming back.
Disclaimer: I work for an airport.
In the opinion of most people that work in commercial aviation, the airline business is in the middle of a huge contraction and consolidation. Fuel costs aren't the reason, they're just the latest body blow in a series of punches that is destroying air travel as you know it.
First off, improving communicatins technology began lessening the need for business air travel in the late 90's. And business travel has always been the lifeblood of the airline industry, it's driving force on a day to day basis. Then September 11th happened. People were scared to fly, they hated the new security measures, and just decided they'd rather drive, thanks. Then came fuel prices.
The US airline industry is undergoing the same fate as the rail industry after WW II, and the military aviation sector after the Cold War ended. A combination of forces is radically shrinking it. Just as there's one passenger rail service now (AmTrak, and subsidized at that), just as there are now only two major airframe builders left in the US (Boeing and Lockheed-Martin), there will probably be, within ten years, only a few passenger airlines left in the US. Delta is already consuming Northwest, and word in the industry is that US Airways is already putting feelers out to Delta; "Hey, buy us out too". Most airports have something of an airline deadpool going. The people I work with are in agreement that we'll probably end up with no more than three major passenger airlines in the US when all is said and done. The biggest air carriers in the world have already changed from passenger companies to freight companies. FedEx and UPS already far outstrip the top US passenger line, Delta, in terms of fleet size, traffic, and numbers of flights. That's only going to accelerate in the future.
More people are going to take "staycations" in the future. If gas prices keep going down, they'll start driving for vacations more, but the heyday of passenger service is done, and it's not coming back. More and more businesses will do their routine "business travel" via teleconferencing. Many smaller airports will either go to skeleton crews to cut costs or just close outright as airlines stop serving them. Even if you brought back massive regulation (and the extra costs that come with it), nothing is going to stop this process. As better and cheaper business broadband becomes more widely available, the paring back of business travel will only accelerate. It'll never completely disappear, but its definitely downsizing, if you will.
Re:Comparison sites bad for business (Score:3, Interesting)
> ...customers didn't book with them direct...
The customers might be able to make a case that the sites were acting as their agents.
Re:I am with Ryanair on this (Score:5, Interesting)
That was NOT Ryanair's position. That was an opinion by the Consumer's Association. Other than that I can understand your position of supporting them.
The real issue here is that ALL the other websites offer prices higher than Ryanair's own website. In a very real sense, Ryanair is protecting all of it's potential customers from being ripped off. Some may say that on the other hand it affects legitimate travel agents from servicing their clients. That is not true either, since a travel agent could book directly with Ryanair.
Another serious problem is that the other websites are using a shady process called screen scraping to use Ryanair's own website to book the flights. It abuses the companies webservers and bandwidth which could be a pretty good reason to stop the websites as well.
Now they may be within their rights to do this, but it is still not very smart. Ryanair cannot protect all the idiots of the world. If those people are determined to not use common sense and check Ryanair's website beforehand for a price comparison, then maybe they deserve what they get.
So Ryanair finally pulled out the WMD on all the websites, but in doing so it may have ultimately harmed itself more than it expected.
Re:Dinosaurs continue to resist change (Score:5, Interesting)
If comparison shopping is a threat to your business model, perhaps you have a flawed business model?
Maybe if the aggregators were just listing the fares from the RyanAir website, and directing customers there when they selected a flight or airline them you'd have a viable argument.
But the aggregators were scraping teh RyanAir website, adding in a margin for THEMSELVES, and processing the transaction.
In other words, they were ripping Ryanair customers off. These Aggregator customers would have been better off just booking through the RyanAir website directly.
Additionally, this move wouldn't affect any aggregator that redirected customers to book through the Ryanair website, because the customer bookings would still go directly through the ryanair website. So if all you were doing was providing convenient (adsupported) flight rate comparisons this move didn't actually affect you. It *only* affected aggregators that actually processed the bookings (and these guys invariably added some margin for themselves.)
I get what you are saying and agree, if blocking comparison shopping is your business model, then something isn't going to go well... but its hard to be critical of Ryanair here. I'm much more inclined to call these aggregator sites that this affected as the badguys here. They were effectively misrepresenting what they were actually offering.
Re:I am with Ryanair on this (Score:3, Interesting)
But how can they get away with not honoring tickets already sold?
Probably because the third parties in question didn't have authorization to sell them. If they had to scrape the site, I'm guessing they didn't have permission.
Thats not all! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:One way or the other, it's asking for trouble (Score:2, Interesting)
You're right about pricing not making sense. A colleague of mine recently booked a flight from southern Alabama to Austria.
The company booked him through Pensacola to Atlanta to Austria. He'd have preferred to drive to Atlanta and just skip the Pensacola to Atlanta leg, but that would have cost $500 more.
How does that make sense, to pay more for fewer flights?
Re:One way or the other, it's asking for trouble (Score:4, Interesting)
can't remember who it was, but I saw a delightful story about someone who wanted to fly something like heathrow -> JFK and the most convenient time-wise was a flight that was starting somewhere in Germany, stopping at Heathrow to pick up extra passengers, then flying on over the Atlantic. They discovered that they could actually save several hundred pounds overall by flying from Heathorw to Germany, then catching the flight from the start, stopping off back in Heathrow on the way.
Crazy.
Re:Ryanair are awful, though (Score:3, Interesting)
I should probably ignore this Anonymous Troll but it's worth pointing out that this "Irish" airline is Europe's largest airline, with a presence in more European countries than any other carrier.
The "if you must fly with an Irish airline" comment makes it pretty clear that this troll is English, immersed in a culture in which "Irish" is code for "laughable, insignificant" and other illusions comforting to a people who managed to blow an Empire and now have a per capita income way lower than Ireland's.
I'm no fan of RyanAir but largely because they have the ruthless attitudes necessary to prosper in a free market, inspired by the American example of SouthWest airlines. Without exception, the other European airlines have copied RyanAir's cost-cutting measures but have generally been generally far less efficient at stuff like turn-around times.
I live in the UK and the level of self-delusion here regarding other countries and nationalities is extraordinary.
Re:One way or the other, it's asking for trouble (Score:3, Interesting)
That flight might be $750. However, you can get a trip from Atlanta to Houston, with a stop in Dallas, for $400. (I'm making up these numbers btw, just using them as an example). So said instructor would purchase tickets for the atlanta to houston flight, and just walk off the plane in Dallas
Some airlines are so infuriated by customers that do this that they will refuse to ever do business with you again. I have no idea why.
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ryanair, ryAnAIR, RIAnAyr, RIAA.
Who the hell is "Nyr"?
Say it isn't so!!! NYR [wikipedia.org]. I knew something was not right with them.
Re:Do not send me customers! (Score:3, Interesting)
I have this amazing product that will solve all your problems. And to make sure that my business is successful, I will punch anyone who dares to send me customers.
Bet you think that's a clever and insightful analogy to poke at obvious stupidity and pigheadedness by some airline.
Except that if the business model for your new product resembles that of airlines (which it may well *not*), then there are some perfectly sensible reasons [slashdot.org] from a business point of view why you might not want your company on a comparison site, even if it's "sending you customers".
Whatever you think about Michael O'Leary as a person, (IMHO he's an amoral and dislikable tosser), he's been very successful with Ryanair and hasn't f****d up yet. The problem with Slashdotters is that because they're generally intelligent when it comes to computers and other geek subjects (though nowhere near as good as they'd like to think) and because they're used to the pointy-haired boss stereotype, they see stuff like this and feel clever at pointing out the "obvious" stupidity. (Which your average guy in the street would probably also do in this case).
Except that this is typical Michael O'Leary behaviour and attitude, and whether you think it sucks or not, it's made him rather successful in a field of major failures.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:4, Interesting)
(60% to 5% (seriously) or lower (!) of next competing bid).
Ok... sorry. That doesn't tell you anything. You specify a range which you qualify at the start with the fact that usually the range is valid and then you say "or lower!" at the end. Imagine a chip which usually has the operating temperatures of 0-50 degrees C.... or lower! What temperature would you guess it was rated to? ;P
Anyway, back on topic - One of the reasons Ryanair has had very good fares recently is because it bought very well in the aviation fuel futures market a few years ago. However, the good deals it got are now coming to an end - expect their prices to come more in line with other airlines soon.
Re:One way or the other, it's asking for trouble (Score:3, Interesting)
Works for checked baggage too, it's just a jerk move. They airplane is not allowed to fly with baggage from passengers who aren't on it.
The action in air travel is at the high end (Score:3, Interesting)
Emirates has just upgraded their first class service, with private suites [emirates.com] and showers on board. [emirates.com] They fly to about 100 cities, connecting the world to Dubai. They have all the business cities on the way up, like Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, Guangzhou, Moscow, and Nagoya. This is part of Dubai's plan to become the center of the financial world.
This isn't a Government-funded expansion plan. Emirates is profitable.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, once I've found the best price on travelocity or orbitz, I'll often go to the airline's site to see if I can get it without the $5 fee. But if one airline just didn't show up on those searches? The odds of me remembering to go to their site every time and search separately are next to none, and I'm probably more anal about comparison shopping than most people (as evidenced by the fact that I'll go to the airline site to try and avoid the $5 fee).
Re:Price discrimination is essential (Score:3, Interesting)
Southwest, one of the few airlines to ever actually post a profit (though there is probably some hollywood accounting in there for the other airlines), also does tiered pricing.
There's no such thing as "price-gouging" and in fact, airlines have found a relatively elegant solution to the problem of finding the market price for their product: set increasing prices for all of the seats and sell the cheapest ones first, until departure or sold out.
That practically guarantees that there will be seats available for those desperate enough.
Shortages are *always* due to a failure of prices to rise to market-clearing levels.
Re:Price discrimination is essential (Score:3, Interesting)
FWIW, where I live (Nebraska), season tickets are much much expensive than the sum of individual tickets. They're handed down through families and have probably sparked worse divorce custody battles than most kids.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:5, Interesting)
Heheh, you seem(are) enlightened. Nice. Let's discuss.
Correction, the myth of free markets leading to the efficency relies on, among other things, the myth of the well-informed consumer.
I'm not sure of the point you are trying to make here, so I am going to talk to my assumption, please correct me if I'm wrong.
Logics aimed at the free market being a false ideal based on the existence, or lack of, of an "informed" consumer are somewhat fallacious. There is no such thing as a free market. ALL markets have regulations. The definition of an "informed" consumer is subjective to the item being purchased, the availability of information regarding said purchase type, and the actual culture of the purchasing entity. In purely economic terms, the culture element is barely recognized, but in a working definition - the observable behavior of the consumer is most definitely included in the definition of "informed".
The presence of trade in the short term does not disprove a market failure.
True. Most definitely true.
Right, but the existence of tools to help correlate that data, especially free and easy ones, certainly increases the likelihood that consumers will.
I have to vehemently disagree. It certainly increases the ability of the consumer to do research, but it doesn't mean they will. One of the cultural distortions I have noticed is that many people feel dumb when faced with the raw data they are given. They will actually STOP researching things once they feel they are out of their element. If you look at how specialized we have become as a whole (regarding employed function), people feel ignorant more often than not regarding consumer research. They know a lot about what it is they do, and fuck all about what they don't. People quit doing research once that research returns data they don't understand.
I still use travel agents (Score:5, Interesting)
I still use travel agents. I've tried Expedia, Cheap Tickets, etc. and they can really get you into a mess. One flight, Denver-Chicago-Dusseldor-Kiev had us with 10 minute flight changes! If one flight were 1 minute late, we'd have been screwed even if the departing flight was at the adjacent gate! There is no way to make some of the schedules these single web sites setup.
Then, they tell you they have flights ranging in price from some low value to God knows what. Try and get the low priced flight. It doesn't exist. OK, try and get economy to Chicago but Business over the water for the long duration. You can't do it.
So, I tell my agent that I want such-and-such airline because I have frequent flyer cards with them. I want economy to Chicago but Business to Europe. I want a minimum of 2 hours but no more than 4 between flights and, the fewest number of flights possible.
In almost every case, she can get me what I want at a LOWER price than the net services! The best part is I don't have to spend hours on the web comparing this to that and getting frustrated. I give her a phone call, she gives me 3 or 4 options and I say OK. It's that simple and usually cheaper too. Besides, she knows my food and seating preferences for all my international flights.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:3, Interesting)
If you don't mind my jumping in here, this is interesting. I think it's implied that the (ideal?) "tools" will process the raw data in the right way for the consumer, thus presenting the results of "automatic research" by an algorithm which hopefully has, for this purpose, the same smarts as a mediocre economics BA who's taken intro stats (that's not a whole lot to ask is it? :) ).
In the totally ideal situation, the price the consumer is willing to pay for access to the tool could provide a valuation of their ignorance and research-anxiety. However, in reality that price is muddled since the site is probably "free" subsidized by advertising; inevitably, the site will compromise the purity of its research by making secret deals with the services; and the consumer will of course have to research which research-site to use!
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:HIJACKED! for a good cause - attempted humour! (Score:1, Interesting)
Tagged "pureunadulteratedstupidity", which is actually a pain in the ass to type. Try it.
Re:One way or the other, it's asking for trouble (Score:2, Interesting)
That's true. It's about game theory and guesswork. Closer to a barter system than a pricing system.
Thing is, a flight might cost the airline $100 per seat. It will cost about as much if the seat is full or if it's empty. Sell a seat for $101, and that's $1 profit. Great! Sell it for $50 represents a $50 loss. That's not so great but if the alternative is losing $100 on an empty seat then they'll go for it. But this still means they need to make sure the average price of a ticket is over $100 to remain profitable.
It's actually easier for the airline to sell some seats for $200, and make a loss on most seats than it is for them to charge a consistent price.
Re:Ryanair are awful, though (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the Walmart of the Sky. Fat, dumb, uncaring, selfish, hungover, violent staff and customers. And many of their airports are at least 50km away from where they are claimed to be: e.g. Frankfurt Hahn, Glasgow Prestwick, etc, etc, etc.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:4, Interesting)
Its perfectly understandable that Ryanair would want to ban these third party sites.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:4, Interesting)
That is not terribly surprising. Before the Internet, US domestic carriers routinely paid a $25 per ticket commission to travel agents, and you had to go to a travel agent to buy a ticket.
When sites like Expedia and Travelocity first started, they also got that $25 commission, and the business was incredibly profitable for them.
Since then airlines have cut their commission structures repeatedly. If there is any commission left it is tiny. The airlines would prefer that you buy tickets direct from their website after all. So the travel sites have to find a way to remain profitable. Adding their own surcharge is one obvious way.
Re:Well, if that's the way they want it (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to vehemently disagree. It certainly increases the ability of the consumer to do research, but it doesn't mean they will. One of the cultural distortions I have noticed is that many people feel dumb when faced with the raw data they are given. They will actually STOP researching things once they feel they are out of their element. If you look at how specialized we have become as a whole (regarding employed function), people feel ignorant more often than not regarding consumer research.
But this does NOT mean that consumers necessarily remain uninformed, it just means that information on products (the conclusion of research) gains an intrinsic value of its own. And there are solutions to that, some free market, some not. For example, I'm shopping for a motorbike, but am at that "feel dumb" point you describe. So I've simply asked some mechanic friends (that I TRUST), and other friends who have lots of experience with motorbikes, for advice, e.g. what are good brands, what kinds of bikes are good for this or that type of purpose etc. Generally you can get a pretty good "feel" on where you're likely to go wrong and where not.
The free market is working just fine. The only complaint seems to be by those who seem to think others are claiming it's perfect. "Perfect" decisions would be nice but "good enough" decisions usually work very well too.
Free markets also aren't intended to be perfect or efficient. They're intended to be free as in liberty. Once you realise the goal is NOT to artificially engineer a supposedly "optimal system", a lot of other cogs fall into place.