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Italy’s competition authority has fined budget airline Ryanair €256mn for unfair tactics which sought to force customers to purchase tickets directly through its own website.

Italy’s Authority for the Guarantee of Competition and the Market claimed that a two-year investigation found that Ryanair had adopted an “abusive strategy” for obstructing travel agencies, including large online platforms, seeking to sell Ryanair flights as part of a broader package of services.

“Ryanair implemented a complex strategy to block, hinder, or make it more difficult and/or economically or technically expensive for travel agencies, online travel agencies and physical retailers to purchase Ryanair flights on the ryanair.com website in combination with flights from other carriers and/or other travel and insurance services,” the competition authority said in a statement.

Ryanair said it would “immediately appeal” against the regulator’s “bizarre/unsound” ruling, which it said “seeks to ignore — and overturn” a 2024 Milan court ruling that found the airline’s direct distribution model benefited consumers and protected them from hidden fees levied by online travel agencies.

Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive, called the competition authority’s ruling and fine “an affront to consumer protection and competition law”, and expressed confidence that the “flawed, gerrymandered ruling” would be overturned.   

The airline has had a fractious relationship with online travel agents, accusing some of the larger agencies of overcharging.

Ryanair carries about 38 to 40 per cent of traffic to and from Italy on European routes, but has had a tense relationship with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government, which objected to the airline sharply raising fares in the peak summer season.

Of the Ryanair group’s €13.9bn in revenues in the financial year that ended on March 31 2025, nearly €3bn was from flights in and out of Italy, representing one of its most important markets, according to the competition watchdog.

AGCM launched its formal investigation into Europe’s largest budget carrier in September 2023, after complaints from Italian travel agencies that Ryanair was exploiting its “dominant position” to “extend its market power” by selling rental cars, hotels and other travel services on its ticketing website.

Among those participating in the investigation as complainants or witnesses were online travel agencies such as Booking.com, Spain’s eDreams and Lastminute.com, as well as the Italian Association of Travel Agents and various Italian consumer associations.

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The probe found that Ryanair adopted deliberate tactics to discourage or obstruct the purchase of tickets for its flights through other channels, including websites and rival online platforms. 

Around mid-2023, Ryanair introduced facial recognition procedures for travellers using tickets purchased through travel agencies on its website, the competition authority said.

At the end of that year, the carrier “completely or intermittently blocked travel agencies’ booking attempts on its website” with tactics such as “blocking payment methods” and “mass deleting accounts linked to bookings made by online travel agencies”, the competition authority found.

Ryanair also imposed “partnership agreements” on online travel agencies and “travel agent direct” agreements with physical travel agencies with “conditions restricting the travel agencies’ ability to offer Ryanair flights combined with other services”, the authority said.

It said agencies were pushed into such agreements by “an intermittent blocking of bookings” and an aggressive communications campaign designed to discredit online travel agencies, calling them “pirates”. 

However, O’Leary argued that the competition authority “cannot be trusted to protect consumers, or uphold competition law when it can be so easily misled by a tiny number of self-serving brick-and-mortar travel agents” and the Spanish online travel agency — referring to the complainants.