{"id":519278,"date":"2026-06-26T10:01:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/519278\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T10:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:01:15","slug":"loveholidays-ceo-ryanair-thought-all-online-travel-agencies-were-pirates-but-not-us-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/519278\/","title":{"rendered":"Loveholidays CEO: \u2018Ryanair thought all online travel agencies were pirates. But not us\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cTwenty minutes ago,\u201d a mildly exasperated Donat R\u00e9tif, chief executive of online travel agent Loveholidays, says in exaggeration when asked when his plane touched down at Dublin Airport<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was unfortunately delayed. The bags were not loaded. The pilot said the weather was good. You will be there on time \u2013 blah, blah, blah \u2013 but there was a problem with the luggage. There was no explanation beyond that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did they not know they had the chief executive of a major travel agent on board? \u201cI never tell them that,\u201d he says, laughing. \u201cIt is the best way to see what they are doing well and what they are not doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s in Ireland this week to mark a decade of business here for Loveholidays. It has grown quickly over that period and now claims to be the largest online travel agent on the island. It has sent more than three million Irish abroad over that period, including 700,000 last year alone.<\/p>\n

The company, which specialises in trips to the Mediterranean<\/a> and Canary Islands, uses agile technology to expand its reach, boasting an inventory of more than 35,000 hotels. Its business model is to be a one-stop-shop for package holidays.<\/p>\n

\"PuertoPuerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, where Loveholidays does a lot of its business <\/p>\n

The London-based group is not publicly listed, but reportedly saw pretax profits rise by a fifth to \u00a367.6 million (\u20ac78.4 million) on sales of \u00a3284 million in the year to October 2024. Plans to float on the stock market are well in train and it is estimated to be worth somewhere north of \u00a31 billion.<\/p>\n

Curiously, R\u00e9tif (55), sitting comfortably now in a room in the Spencer Hotel, Dublin, on the banks of the Liffey, did not set foot on an aircraft until he was 20, having grown up in a small mining town in the south of Belgium<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Initially, he dreamed of becoming a footballer, playing in the national team in the number 10 role \u2013 the creative engine of the team \u2013 up to the age of 16, but was not good enough to make the cut.<\/p>\n

Has he been watching the World Cup<\/a>? \u201cOh, yes,\u201d he says. \u201cBut our golden generation is like me \u2013 it\u2019s old. The new generation is coming but it\u2019s not there yet. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be a good World Cup for Belgium.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as the French don\u2019t win \u2013 as a Belgian guy \u2013 I am happy. France is a big country. They are very arrogant. They think the rest of the world is second fiddle. We\u2019re this small country on their side, so any country can win but not the French.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having moved on from football, R\u00e9tif decided to concentrate on his studies, and here he excelled. \u201cIt gave me a path to leave my native village,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was one of the three poorest areas in Europe. Unemployment is about 38-39 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cTravel was less common then. I come from a very poor background. I didn\u2019t travel because we didn\u2019t have the means to travel. I had this dream in my head of leaving the country and discovering the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I was not too bad at school, I had the opportunity to study in Canada, which was the first time I was on a plane. I love my home, but when I came back I knew for sure I would not stay where I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

After his studies, he began his working life in telecoms, including a spell with communications giant Verizon in and around the time of the 9\/11 terror attacks, holding jobs in Canada and on the west coast of the US.<\/p>\n

\"HijackedHijacked United Airlines flight 175 flies towards the World Trade Center twin towers shortly before hitting the south tower on September 11th, 2001. Photograph: Sean Adair\/Reuters <\/p>\n

\u201cI was an early 30s Belgian guy speaking funny English,\u201d he says. \u201cThe economy had completely collapsed. People were very fearful. They didn\u2019t travel and were holding on to their money.\u201d<\/p>\n

He returned to Belgium when his father was diagnosed with colon cancer at 56-years-old and given six months to live. \u201cI took my bag and I came back \u2013 I had to help my mother,\u201d he says, adding that his father made a full recovery.<\/p>\n

From there, he led a company in Belgium that published the equivalent of the Yellow Pages business directory. More recently, he was chief executive of MeteoGroup, which uses advanced technology to predict weather patterns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was interesting because 50 per cent of the economic world is impacted by weather: agriculture, energy, offshore, insurance,\u201d he says. \u201cHow many beers people drink depends on whether it is hot or cold, and what the weather is like.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe developed the best software and algorithm for weather prediction. You can\u2019t dig oil without having at least two official weather forecasts because it is so dangerous, so that\u2019s what we were doing. If you watch the BBC weather forecast, it is still powered by MeteoGroup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then one day R\u00e9tif got a phone call from a headhunter friend of his who told him about Loveholidays.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a small company and until that point I had only worked for big companies,\u201d he says. \u201cI was told it was a gem of a company in London, but I thought the name of the company was a bit funny already.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked a few people had they heard of it. Most said, \u2018No\u2019. I went on the website and I didn\u2019t like it too much. I said to the guys, \u2018I\u2019m used to big, international companies and this is a little UK-only travel business, did you get it wrong?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me to go and meet the founder. I absolutely loved him. He was the complete opposite to me. Physically, he was a small chubby guy. He is very charismatic and entrepreneurial with 1,000 ideas a minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe meeting was meant to last half-an-hour to get to know each other. I think we stayed two hours talking about football and everything else. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I delved a little more deeply and realised the power of the business and the technology I felt it was something we could build and decided to join. I grow businesses. That\u2019s what I know. I\u2019m not a founder. I don\u2019t have those qualities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three months later, the world \u2013 and in particular the world of travel \u2013 ground to a halt as the Covid-19<\/a> virus spread around the globe.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo more bookings, and we did not know long it was to last,\u201d he says. \u201cThe first two years I was in London were tough. I was alone in my little flat on the fourth floor and all we did at the time was process refunds, chasing airlines to get people\u2019s money back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe departures area of terminal once at Dublin Airport during the Covid-19 pandemic. Photograph: Alan Betson<\/p>\n

But R\u00e9tif was used to firefighting, so did not hesitate when the company offered him the reins. \u201cI was in the US after 9\/11 and I was in publishing in 2008 when everything moved to digital,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Was there any danger of the company going under at that stage? \u201cYes, we had to raise roughly \u00a3100 million or we would have gone under,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had done it before in other industries. There was no panic because I knew what to do. There is an old phrase: if you owe \u20ac1,000 to a bank, you have a problem. If you owe \u20ac1 million to a bank, they have a problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went to our lenders and said we had a great business with 44 consecutive quarters of growth outside Covid. People will travel. It is the number one thing people want to do. So help us bridge this and we will recover.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company is owned by private equity firm Livingbridge, which he says was also supportive during that period. \u201cI know lots of people have negative things to say about private equity, but they were great with us. They were supportive along the way. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to cut costs. If you do that, you take away the oxygen the company needs to bounce back. What we did very well \u2013 and unlike our peers \u2013 is that instead of cutting costs we doubled down on the technology and made sure we would become a scalable business. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo do that, you develop the technology that is at the heart of the business in a way that you can take it to multiple countries with multiple products. We were selling short-haul from the UK and were pretty good at it. We were fourth or fifth in the world rankings, but our technology was already better.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hired a few great people. I have worked in five different industries in five different countries. We were not good at customer service before Covid. The advantage of Covid was that nobody was really looking at what we were doing and we completely rebuilt the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to build the global leader in package holidays. Most companies offer either flights or hotels. Very few put packages together. The reason they don\u2019t is because it is very complicated to do. If something happens to one element, you need to reorganise the whole trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince Covid, we have tripled the size of the business. Jet2, EasyJet, TUI, On the Beach \u2013 all great companies \u2013 were growing at 5-10 per cent after Covid and we were growing at 25-30 per cent. We added more passengers than anyone else.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I joined the business, TUI were five times bigger than us. Next year we will probably overtake them. We are now three times the size of On the Beach, who were bigger than us previously.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0How Europe solved the jet fuel crisis and saved your summer holidays<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Loveholidays is well known for utilising technology in its business, but what about the advance of artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI)? And could it put R\u00e9tif out of a job some day?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, people are not using AI after they start the booking process because they don\u2019t know what is being provided,\u201d he says. \u201cThe issue is trust. That\u2019s number one. We offer billions of combinations of packages.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI cannot do that because the cost of pulling all the information, structuring it and normalising it is gigantic. Every hotel presents stuff differently. It would cost something like all the energy of the United States to do that, so they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople also come to us to get a deal. That comes from years of negotiation. A machine is never going to get you a deal. AI does not offer multiple payment methods. It also does not know what to do when something like the Middle East war happens.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have to refund every customer within 14 days and deal with all the regulatory bodies. AI does not do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But could it be something that happens down the road? \u201cNo, we are very close to the AI companies \u2013 we are talking to them all the time \u2013 and they don\u2019t want to do that,\u201d he says. \u201cWill AI continue to give us better sources of information? Yes. Will it help us to compare? Yes. Will it take care of the booking process? I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of bookings, the tourism and travel industry has been back in crisis mode since the US-Israeli attacks on Iran<\/a> began in February and closed the Strait of Hormuz and sent oil and fuel prices skyrocketing.<\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald Trump after Iran shot down a US aircraft while it was on patrol in the Gulf. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein\/AP <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the war started, we were performing very, very well,\u201d R\u00e9tif says. \u201cThe month of March was less good, and then we recovered well in April and May, and June is fantastic even before the announcement of the [US-Iran] deal, especially in Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were growing mid-teens. In March, it dropped to single digit growth. In June, we are back to high double digits. <\/p>\n

\u201cIreland has performed even better, which is why I don\u2019t understand reports in the media about many agents saying the market is down by 20 per cent. Ireland is our best market because 93 per cent of our bookings are in what we call low-risk destinations like Spain and the Balearics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIrish people are quite traditional in the way they travel. The Middle East and places like Turkey represent only about 7 per cent of our total bookings in Ireland. The number is more like 25 per cent in the UK. So, the market in Ireland continues to grow fast for us, above mid-teens.\u201d<\/p>\n

An important part of that growth path has been in maintaining friendly relations with airlines. The company struck a deal with Ryanair in 2024<\/a> that allows its customers to book flights with the airline. R\u00e9tif denies ever having had a row with the group, despite some reports of tensions.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, before we signed a deal, Ryanair thought all the online travel agencies were the same,\u201d he says. \u201cO\u2019Leary said we were all pirates, stealing customers \u2013 it was very aggressive. In some cases, he was right, but not about us. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not making any money on flights. Once we managed to talk the same language and explain this to them, we signed a deal. Once you start working with the real people \u2013 not the lawyers \u2013 they are fantastic, very agile, very humble and they get things done.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he has never met Ryanair chief Michael O\u2019Leary<\/a>, but has had dealings with its other top executive, Eddie Wilson. As for his impressions of the man, he says: \u201cVery nice guy. What you see is what you get with Ryanair. That\u2019s what I like about them. There is no fluff.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur relationship is very good. The challenges they had with online travel agencies were not with online travel agencies like us. The challenge for them was with agencies that only offer flights. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe model with online travel agencies is they give you a discount on the entry price and they recover that as you add ancillaries. We don\u2019t take any margin on flights. The money we get is on the hotel. Whatever you pay with us for a Ryanair flight is the same as you pay with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loveholidays is still in the planning phase of its initial public offering, and the war in the Middle East has set the group back. \u201cWe were hoping to do it in 2026, but then the war happened,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Trump started the war on February 28th, which obviously has an impact on airlines because the price of fuel has increased massively. It had an impact on consumer confidence and will have an impact on all our wallets because of energy prices<\/a>. I\u2019m not a betting man, but I would be surprised if 2026 is still on the cards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where will they float? \u201cI am not supposed to say that because we have not decided,\u201d he says. \u201cBut what I can tell you is we are a London-based company and most of our employees are based in London.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a busy life he leads, but R\u00e9tif says he sleeps well, reads three thriller novels a week and finds time to relax in playing sport. \u201cYou have to reduce the size of the ball with age from football to tennis to golf, and soon I will play marbles,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife is a painter \u2013 complete opposite of me, which I like \u2013 and she does not give a damn about business.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate socialising. I can count my best friends on one hand. They know if something happens, I will disappear and help them. Usually people in my job, they have a huge network and go to all these events. I despise that. I\u2019m only comfortable in my little group.\u201d<\/p>\n

CV<\/p>\n

Name: Donat R\u00e9tif<\/p>\n

Job: Chief executive, Loveholidays<\/p>\n

Age: 55<\/p>\n

Lives: London<\/p>\n

Family: Married with two adult children<\/p>\n

Hobbies: Padel, reading, wine-tasting and sport generally<\/p>\n

Something we might expect: He speaks four languages<\/p>\n

Something we might not expect: He has a photographic memory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cTwenty minutes ago,\u201d a mildly exasperated Donat R\u00e9tif, chief executive of online travel agent Loveholidays, says in exaggeration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[218,17979,72,160,11900,37635,61,11829,60,20099,10726,1899,4018],"class_list":["post-519278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-belgium","tag-business","tag-covid-19","tag-dublin-airport","tag-energy-crisis","tag-ie","tag-iran","tag-ireland","tag-mediterranean","tag-michael-oleary","tag-ryanair","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}