I heavily rely on multiple booking sites like Atrapalo, WeGoLo, Kayak, Rumbo, Orbitz, Expedia and CheapTickets. I find that 80% of the time, they are the best way to choose a route and flight to a destination. So reading that Ryan Air is not going to accept bookings from these sites, was an annoying blow.Starting August 11, Ryan Air has announced plans to cancel all flight bookings through these intermediary sites (also called "screen scrapers"). Why? Apparently, these sites function against their terms and conditions, and are illegal. In addition, they want to ensure that passengers get the lowest rates, to avoid the Ryan Air's website server be overloaded, and to be able to have direct contact with their customers. On the business front: When people book flights on intermediary sites, websites like Ryan Air lose sales on services such as travel-insurance, hotel-bookings, car-rentals, etc -- probably the main reason for this action.
For the moment, BravoFly, V-tours, Opodo, Atrapalo, and OTbeach, are the main ones Ryan Air is taking action against.
I think passengers have the right to choose how they want to book their flights. There are more pros than cons booking with third parties, and if the customer is willing to pay the extra buck, the airline is no one to interfere with that. Anyhow, only 0.5% of Ryan Air's bookings come through these booking engines; since Ryan Air will no longer appear on the flight options of these "screen scrapers", they are bound to lose that business. Looks like they are just making an unnecessary inconvenience for everyone.
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