Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 low fares airline, today (Tues, 12 May) released its May OTA Survey, showing OTAs like eDreams and Tryp continue to overcharge customers up to 110% over Ryanair’s website prices. These OTAs have no distribution agreements with Ryanair because their business models depend on overcharging consumers. eDreams & Tryp are this month’s worst offenders, with eDreams selling reserved seats which cost €10.50 on Ryanair.com for €21.82, more than double Ryanair’s price, while Tryp is selling a 20kg bag for €60, when it costs just €28.49 on Ryanair.com, an overcharge of over 110%.

This latest survey adds more weight to the voluminous evidence showing that a small number of OTAs who refuse to have agreements with Ryanair, continue to overcharge consumers, which reinforces the recent Italian €9 million fine against eDreams for “clearly deceptive” and “misleading” pricing. These cases demonstrate a consistent pattern of consumer harm by these overcharging OTA’s, underlining the need for Govt protection for consumers.

Ryanair calls again on EU Govts (most notably Spain’s useless Consumer Minister Bustinduy) and National Consumer Authorities across the EU to take urgent action to protect consumers from these overcharging OTAs. They must insist on mandatory price transparency from all OTAs, which is in line with the transparent pricing being delivered by all of Ryanair’s “Approved OTA” partners, which protect consumers from these overcharging OTA’s.

Ryanair’s Dara Brady said:

“Ryanair’s May survey shows that OTAs such as eDreams and Tryp continue to overcharge unsuspecting consumers, in some cases by more than double the prices available on Ryanair’s website. Yet still, Spain’s useless Consumer Minister Bustinduy does nothing to protect Spanish consumers from this persistent overcharging and consumer harm.

We again call on EU Govts and Consumer Protection Authorities to take urgent action to protect consumers by insisting on OTA price transparency, such as the transparency standards applied by all of Ryanair’s approved OTA partners.”