Ryanair fined €256m over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by online travel agencies | Ryanair
Ryanair has been fined €256 million (£223 million) by Italy’s competition authority for abusing its dominant position in the market to limit ticket sales by online travel agencies.
The official said Europe’s largest airline had “implemented a malicious strategy to thwart travel agents” through an “elaborate strategy” of technical barriers for agents and passengers to make it harder for online travel agents to sell Ryanair tickets and force them to sell through its own website instead.
The penalty relates to Ryanair’s conduct between April 2023 and at least April 2025, the official said on Tuesday. He said Ryanair was preventing online travel agents from selling tickets on its flights with other airlines and services, weakening competition.
Ryanair said it would immediately appeal the “legally flawed” decision.
Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary had decided to declare war on what he described as “pirate” travel agencies such as Booking.com, Kiwi and Kayak. O’Leary accused the travel agency industry of defrauding and defrauding unsuspecting consumers by charging extra fees and increases in ticket prices.
While O’Leary was trying to stop travel agents from selling tickets, he was willing to accept lower ticket sales by forcing his passengers to fill out extra forms, supposedly as a security measure. The sudden removal of Ryanair flights from agencies’ websites in late 2023 has resulted in a decline in the airline’s sales.
Lower sales hurt Ryanair’s profits, but did not stop the Irish airline from rising to a record valuation of €31bn (£27bn). This made it the world’s second most valuable airline, after the United States’ Delta Air Lines.
O’Leary, known for his combative and often abusive criticism of airports, competitors and regulators, plans to hand over control of the business to his successor within the next five to 10 years. He will be given shares worth €111 million (£97 million) if he stays with the airline until the end of July 2028. He was already a billionaire on paper due to his shareholding.
Responding to the decision, O’Leary said it was an “insult to consumer protection and competition law”.
He added: “The Internet and the ryanair.com website have enabled Ryanair to distribute directly to consumers and Ryanair has passed on these 20% cost savings in the form of the lowest airfares in Italy and Europe.
“Ryanair looks forward to successfully overturning this legally flawed decision and the absurd €256 million fine imposed in the courts.”
The vast majority of Ryanair’s sales were through its website, even before the challenge with online travel agencies. But Italian authorities said Ryanair was guilty of “abusing its dominant position” and using its “significant market power” to try to destroy the business.
Ryanair’s tactics included introducing facial recognition procedures for people purchasing tickets through a third party, claiming it was necessary for security. It then “fully or intermittently blocked travel agencies’ booking attempts,” including blocking payment methods and mass deleting accounts.
The airline then imposed “association agreements” on the agents with other carriers, prohibiting the sale of Ryanair flights and blocking bookings to force them to sign up. But in April this year it allowed agencies’ websites to link to its services, allowing effective competition.
The competition authority said Ryanair’s actions “prevented, hindered or made such purchases more difficult and/or economically or technically burdensome when combined with flights operated by other carriers and/or other tourism and insurance services”.
