Low-cost Irish carrier Ryanair has approved a new partnership with online travel agency (OTA) kiwi.com, building on a recently approved collaboration with loveholidays.com. This arrangement guarantees Kiwi direct access to the Ryanair website without resorting to ‘screenscraping’.
Kiwi customers can now buy Ryanair flights and ancillary items at their original prices, as well as gaining access to their myRyanair account. Unlike unauthorised OTA pirate companies, Kiwi customers will now no longer need to complete Ryanair’s customer verification process.
“Ryanair has long campaigned for all consumers to be protected from OTA Pirate overcharges and scams, and to eliminate fake customer contact and payment info being provided to airlines,” said Ryanair’s Dara Brady. “This new partnership with Kiwi represents a significant step in achieving that protection for all Kiwi customers.”
In December 2023, Ryanair welcomed an Irish High Court permanent injunction, precenting screenscraper Flightbox from using automated data collection technology to scrape its website for OTAs. The airline’s January 2024 OTA Pirate survey reported overcharges of up to 125% from unauthorised travel agencies.