Ryanair has signed a distribution deal with travel tech company Kyte that will provide its corporate travel partners with access to the low-cost airline’s content. The partnership will go live in Q1 this year with an exact date to be confirmed, said a report in Business Travel News Europs.
Kyte, which works with airlines to provide their content to travel sellers via API connections, said the partnership “effectively supports Ryanair’s content and functionality” within retailers’ own web, mobile and alternative portals “for a seamless corporate customer service.”
The distributor’s deal has “GDS parity”, meaning Kyte will support full content, ancillaries and bundles but, like Ryanair’s GDS agreements, will not provide access to the carrier’s three lowest fare classes.
The airline said the partnership gives Ryanair “streamlined access to the travel ecosystem, including a vast array of corporate travel partners, without the need for legacy GDSs.”
Ryanair has signed a number of agreements with OTAs in the leisure travel space in recent weeks and announced a direct connect deal – yet to go live – with online booking provider Concur in December.
Travel management companies have struggled to provide and service Ryanair content to their customers in recent months since specialist content aggregators turned off access to it. The airline has clamped down on what it calls “OTA pirates” operating primarily in the leisure sector which ‘scrape’ the airline’s content and sell it with additional charges.
Alice Ferrari, Kyte CEO and co-founder, said: “As the airline industry transitions to API distribution, this announcement demonstrates Ryanair’s progressive mindset around supporting new technologies. I’m extremely proud that Ryanair has chosen Kyte as their first official non-GDS distribution partner.”
Ferrari added: “This partnership demonstrates our commitment to helping airlines like Ryanair broaden their reach and open new and relevant revenue streams, on their terms.” Ryanair content will also be made available on Kyte’s partner desktop solutions including AirGateway. Last summer, AirGateway partnered with Kyte to provide easyJet’s “full range” of fares, bundles, ancillaries and services to its customers.
