Ryanair has dismissed as "false" claims by travel agents that it has anything to do with delays in refunding millions of euro to customers due to flight cancellations triggered by the pandemic.
Earlier today, The Irish Travel Agents Association told the Oireachtas Transport Committee that it estimated consumers in Ireland are owed €20m euro in refunds - mainly from Ryanair - and blamed the airline for a "logjam" which has slowed the process of returning funds to customers.
ITAA CEO Pat Dawson said third party travel agents had dealt with Ryanair for the last 20 years, but that problems had only arisen with the start of the pandemic.
He said travel agents were engaging with Ryanair to try to clear the backlog, and were "working through verification and onerous paperwork" to be returned to the airline.
"It's not the travel agents or the consumer, it is slowed down by Ryanair," he said.
ITAA Board Member Paul Hackett told the Committee that Ryanair had acknowledged they had an obligation under EU Directive 261 to refund customers, and had indicated they wanted to do so directly to the clients.
He said travel agents accepted that point, and were absolutely behind Ryanair in getting refunds to everyone due money.
Mr Hackett said travel agents had engaged in their customer verification process with a "raft" of documentation - but that at some point in October or November, the system seemed to "stall".
He said some cheques had issued from a German bank, but nothing had come out since then - and that Ryanair were now looking for bank details in order to do bank transfers.
He said the end-customer was the one who was suffering, not the travel agents.
Responding to a query from RTÉ, Ryanair stated: "Ryanair owes no money to any unauthorised agents, because it does not deal with travel agents on its Ryanair.com website."
The airline said all refunds for Covid cancelled flights were not due to unauthorised travel agents, but rather directly to the passenger - a point not disputed by the ITAA.
"The CAR [Commission for Aviation Regulation] have confirmed that any payments such as reimbursement or compensation must go directly to the passenger," Ryanair said.
The airline insisted that the only refund left outstanding involved a "tiny" number of cases where Ryanair had not received the refund request via their Customer Verification Form from the passenger."
"Some unauthorised travel agents are delaying these passenger refund requests because they will expose the overcharging of passengers by these unauthorised agents, many of whom charge higher fares or excessive fees (up to €50) just to book a short haul Ryanair flight costing just €9.99!!!" the airline insisted.
It cited a situation involving 89 students from a school in Clare who were still awaiting refunds, despite receiving vouchers from Ryanair last August.
It said this was because their "unauthorised" agent had still not advised them to submit their refund request on a Customer Verification Form directly to Ryanair, over six months after that agent received their Ryanair vouchers.
The airline said it was now dealing directly with the school to get the Customer Verification Forms submitted, and pledged that the passenger refunds would be issued within seven days of receipt.
It alleged the seven-month delay experienced by the customers had been caused "solely by the failure and inaction of their unauthorised agent".
