Last year On The Beach and Ryanair were facing off in court and in the press. This week, their CEOs were posing with inflatable ice creams in a rowing boat in sunny Manchester. It鈥檚 amazing the difference that sitting around a table can make.
Ryanair's CEO Eddie Wilson came to the travel company鈥檚 offices near Piccadilly station on Thursday to announce the low-cost airline鈥檚 flights are now on offer as part of On The Beach's package deals.
The Irish airline had been locked in a furious row with On The Beach over whether or not it could sell Ryanair flights. Ryanair has accused online travel agents of being 鈥減irates鈥 for selling flights unofficially, meaning there could be confusion over contact details and refunds when there were delays or cancellations. The companies even went to court, with On The Beach winning a 拢2m victory in December.
But in February the companies announced they had reached an agreement, and this week On The Beach chief executive Shaun Morton and Mr Wilson met staff at the package holiday firm鈥檚 Adair Street to announce Ryanair flights are from today available as part of On The Beach鈥檚 holidays.
From a consumer perspective, that means people can book through On The Beach and then get all their flight information directly from Ryanair, avoiding any of the confusion or disputes. It could also lead to more holiday options for On The Beach customers.
Mr Morton and Mr Wilson were all smiles - no surprise, as this is a positive outcome for both of them. But I wanted to hear what had helped bring these two fierce rivals together.
First I spoke to Mr Morton, who told me: 鈥淲e've always booked Ryanair seats for our customers as part of our package holidays, but that journey has not been without friction. And I'd say particularly over the last 12 months, there鈥檚 been friction there and us and Ryanair - we have had a dispute about that.
鈥淎nd what's really positive here is that this dispute has been resolved by us both getting around a table and coming to a sensible commercial arrangement, rather than it being decided by a judge in a courtroom. That鈥檚 really positive.
鈥淲hat this arrangement does is provide a perfect blueprint for how airlines and travel agents could work together. It's free and fair access to their seats in a very transparent way.鈥
Mr Wilson explained there had been a 鈥済rey area鈥 where online travel agents resold Ryanair flights to their customers. That meant Ryanair did not have direct access to those customers' information, which was held by the agent - so if there were any flight changes, delays or cancellations, there could be confusion about what would happen.
He said: 鈥淪o when we鈥檝e got a regularised relationship here, as we do with On The Beach, it means that they can sell those seats and package it onto a package holiday customer.
鈥淭he consumer knows who they're flying with, who's got responsibility for what in terms of refunds and provision of information.
鈥淚t's really important to us, because cleaning that up if things go wrong is hugely expensive, and there's a lot of reputational damage that we had prior to this.鈥
On The Beach is one of six online travel agents (OTAs) with whom Ryanair has signed formal agreements. Mr Wilson said Ryanair - led by outspoken group chief executive Michael O'Leary - would still pursue any other travel agents who sold its flights without permission. He said bluntly: "The ones that we don't have a relationship with, it鈥檚 very simple, they are misselling our flights."
Mr Morton said the deal would help On The Beach to access Ryanair鈥檚 massive network. The airline already serves 170 destinations from 22 海角视频 airports, and last year carried more than 180 million passengers across its European network. Mr Morton added: 鈥淭hat will help us provide some real choice for customers in the 海角视频.鈥
And he said: 鈥淩yanair represents a huge amount of the seat supply that we would like. This is going to make things more straightforward for customers, operationally more straightforward for us, and it means we can focus on doing what we want to do - which is providing the holidays to our customers.鈥
And Mr Wilson said the deal could help On The Beach offer more flight choices to passengers from Manchester and beyond. He said: 鈥淲e've got a relationship here, whereby they're able to package (with Ryanair) the lowest fares, best on-time performance, and the widest network with the most frequencies.
鈥淪o like if you think about it from their point of view, they might actually be selling a holiday and people don't want to go on the first flight out of Manchester - well invariably, to the popular destinations, we might have three, four or five flights throughout the day, so there鈥檚 much more choice in how they package those as well.鈥
A final note on this celebratory day. Michael O鈥橪eary has always enjoyed posing for 鈥渃omedy鈥 photographs. And On The Beach helped keep that proud Ryanair tradition alive - after the event, they sent over a picture of both CEOs in a rowing boat, with Mr Wilson pretending to eat an inflatable ice cream.
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