Ryanair releases November "online travel agency piracy" survey

06-12-23

Ryanair has released its November survey on online travel agency (OTA) piracy scams and overcharges by online travel agencies (OTAs). The report shows that OTAs such as Kiwi.com, Lastminute.com, Opodo.com and eDreams.com "continue to rip off unsuspecting consumers with unjustified fees and charges for their non-existent services, while at the same time overcharging for ancillary services that are competitively priced on the Ryanair.com website. Ryanair is therefore continuing to campaign to protect consumers from these overcharging and mis-selling OTA pirates," the Irish airline explains.

Ryanair continues to study and highlight "consumer scams perpetrated by these OTA pirates, who pose as price comparison websites, when in reality they are ripping off customers with fabricated "handling" or "cancellation" fees or are charging up to 344% more for Ryanair's ancillary services."

Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary said, "Our November survey continues to expose the scams and overcharging by these OTA pirates. Not only are they illegally using Ryanair's website in an act of digital piracy, but they are using this illegally obtained information to scam unsuspecting consumers with charges for services that are provided by Ryanair free of charge. They are also massively charging customers for Ryanair ancillary services, often increasing 3 or 4 times the price offered by our airline. That is why Ryanair continues to campaign against these OTA pirates and continues to call on governments and consumer agencies to take action to prevent this internet piracy and blatant mis-selling affecting consumers."

"We find it incredible that the UK Government, its consumer agencies (the CMA and CAA) or useless consumer magazines such as Which continue to ignore this rampant internet piracy and mis-selling against consumers. Ryanair continues to denounce these deceptive and illegal practices and will continue to call for these pirate OTAs to be outlawed and for an end to their scams. We are not at all pleased to rank Kiwi.com as the biggest pirate OTA in Europe in our November survey, charging unsuspecting consumers €24.40 for an allocated seat that cost only €5.50 on Ryanair.com. This is a 344% overcharge and demonstrates the extent to which these pirate OTAs not only engage in digital piracy, but then use the results to rip off and overcharge customers."

Author: Redacción Smart Travel News

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