Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has admitted to being wrong after previously claiming the budget airline would never sell through a GDS again.
Speaking to journalists as he announced a deal to distribute Ryanair flights through Amadeus’ GDS, O’Leary said: “I’m the person that for the last 10 years said ‘over my dead body would we ever go back to GDS’. I said we would never do that. It’s another thing I have got wrong for Ryanair in the past 10 years – this is a sign of change.
“I’m an idiot – don’t listen to anything I say when I say we will never do anything ever again. This will play a major role in our rapid expansion.”
O’Leary said previously he believed that web would be king and the only thing necessary to grow, but today he concurred that wider distribution was needed to help him “widen Ryanair’s appeal”.
“I couldn’t be happier [about the deal with Amadeus]”, he added. Around 90% of Ryanair’s fares will be available via the GDS, but very low promotional fares would only be available direct on the airline’s website.
O’Leary said the move to work with more “big corporate travel agencies” would help the airline’s aim to drive business travel bookings, adding that while he wouldn’t rule out working with further GDSs, the deals with Amadeus and Travelport meant the airline already had 90% market penetration.
He added that given he was being open-minded about working through a GDS, he would apply the same mantra to working with more tour operators.
“We are getting a lot of enquiries now from tour operators but we don’t want to run before we can walk,” he said, adding that the airline would work with operators who wanted smaller allocations, rather than those wanting hundreds of seats.