UPDATED: Ryanair suspends Holidays service claiming illegal screenscraping by tech partner

Less than months after launching its new Ryanair Holidays service the leading European budget carrier has suspended Continue reading →

Less than two months after launching its new Ryanair Holidays service the leading European budget carrier has suspended it.

In a statement on the Ryanair Holidays homepage the airline claimed its technology provider had been involved in “illegal screenscraping and mis-selling”.

The launch of the package holiday service was announced in London on December 2 along with partners Logitravel, its Spanish accommodation and transfers provider.

It also partners with destination management firm World2Meet on the initiative.

Ryanair has not named the company it alleges to have been unlawfully screenscraping its fares.

In a statement the carrier said: “Ryanair today (Jan20) confirmed it has temporarily suspended its Holidays service, and terminated its agreement with the software provider who was found to be unlawfully scraping Ryanair’s low fares.

“All existing Ryanair Holidays bookings are secure and Ryanair is currently finalising an agreement with a new software provider, who it expects to appoint shortly.

“Ryanair apologises to its customers for any inconvenience caused but re-emphasised that it will not allow any third party software provider to “screenscrape” and unlawfully re-sell Ryanair’s low fares.”

Ryanair had hoped to “transform” the package holiday market with the service claiming to be able to undercut existing retailers.

The statement on the website says: “We expect to go-live with the replacement Ryanair Holidays service in mid to end February.”

In a statement Logitravel said: “At Logitravel we were delighted to be asked to join the Ryanair Holidays project and we worked very hard to deliver the programme against significant time constraints.

“This process meant developing a direct connection to the Ryanair booking system. We have enjoyed being part of the project as we hold the Ryanair business model, as well as its chief executive in very high regard.

“Ryanair, however, has taken the unilateral decision to remove Logitravel from the project. This decision was taken over one month ago but we offered to continue with the programme for an additional month in order to give Ryanair time and space to find another partner.

“This we did out of respect for Ryanair and to ensure as much as we could that Ryanair Holidays be given the best chance to succeed. We wish Ryanair success for the future with Ryanair Holidays.”