Words Go Further

Ryanair hates deep linking and scraping

Low cost Irish airline Ryanair has never been afraid of courting controversy and messing with perceived wisdom. Chief Executive Michael O’Leary is one of the most outspoken people in his industry so it should have come as no surprise that Ryanair has decided to own its own little corner of the internet and not play with anyone else.

Ryanair has decided that it won’t accept bookings from third party sites - the only way you can book a ticket is through their own website. Customers who recently booked through sites like lastminute.com have been told they will be given refunds but their bookings won’t stand.

The company has for years objected to screen-scraping but rejecting actual bookings takes it to a new level.

Why are they doing this?

The Consumer Association, which is pretty angry, believes its because Ryanair don’t want to miss out on on-sell opportunities (like car rentals and hotels) which they can control through their own site.

Jason Calacanis, speaking on This Week in Tech, speculated that Rynair might be thinking of the long-term effect of allowing this level of scraping. If people get used to using third party sites, what happens when they see comparative offers which are tastier? Better to keep them at your own domain where you can feed them your deals and your deals only.

Jason may be right about their motives, but I don’t think this makes long-term sense: quite the opposite. Ryanair has a great opportunity to access many more potential travelers by opening up its databases. Let the geeks at it and watch them mash it up with other useful data sets. Combine it with review data, forecasts, currency converters. Create extra value and impress your customers. They might even like you rather than put up with you.

Tags: ryanair, scraping, walledgardens