To be fair, that is described as an 8 year old example. Their current UX is much more clear.
Their current pattern is more about playing into the fear of what happens without insurance, without selecting your seat, when you don't pay for early check in and forget to do it online on the day before the flight, or what happens if you show up with more or larger luggage than what you booked. Fears they themselves create with high fees for showing up with too much luggage or for checking in at the airport
There is still a bit of praying on people who are in a hurry or are impatient, don't read the screens and just click the most prominent button. The most obvious is the seat selection. But it's no longer the most prominent way they get you
It's funny, I booked a flight with Ryanair only about an hour ago - out of pure desperation - first time in 15 years.
I remember them being crafty, but I have to admit I was surprised by the level of tactics ... that is to say, what they are still allowed to get away with given European / UK consumer law.
Not to mention that a 20kg bag and hand luggage cost me significantly more than the fare itself. They even had upfront "package deals" that would have actually worked out more expensive - bundles of nonsense benefits.
In Australia most of this kind of borderline deceptive selling has been stepped on, to the point that you hardly see it any more.
My story wasn't with Ryanair, but I used to use Skyscanner to find the cheapest ticket, which is usually from a reseller agent instead of the airline (and whatever savings one made was wasted with time reading the 1-star reviews of how shit they are and then convincing oneself "Oh it'll be fine.").
One of these sites offered the ticket for dozens of Euros cheaper, and allowed me to go through the booking process until the end: I entered my CC, hit "Buy", and the next page was "Oops, the flight is no longer available at this price. The price now is: [the same price as booking with the airline]. Would you like to complete the purchase with this new price anyway?".
Fucking hell, it pissed me off so much that I said no and booked it with the airline after all.
I spent most of my professional life working in various roles in aviation, which included several years in a customer facing position at an airport.
I'd recommend never ever using reseller agents. They frequently mess up tickets, they sell tickets that don't exist at all, and most of them won't forward your contact info to the airline's system, so if there's a problem or delay you'll never receive the notification from the airline. (Including coupons, hotel room offers in case of cancellation and other stuff)
The airlines may be bad but the resellers are worse.
In my experience, the reseller agents don't even offer better prices these days.
So I'll typically use a service like Google Flights to find a flight, pick an itinerary, but then go to the airline's web page to book the flight directly.
Same for hotels. Find a hotel on Expedia, then book with the hotel directly.
I've seen too many horror stories of people booking through a reseller, and if something goes wrong, the reseller tells you to talk to the hotel/airline while the hotel/airline tells you to talk to the reseller.
The biggest problem, IMO, is that if you buy from a third party when shit hits the fan you have to rely on that third party. This is still a problem even with reputable travel agents like Amex and Chase. Even in the best case scenario where the agent is actually good, having to get a flight changed via a phone call with some agent who might or might not answer promptly and might or might not be able to work quick enough to win a race of rebooking after a cancelled flight before next best one fills up is just asking for a horrible experience. If you book with the airline directly they have a lot more leeway and power to unfuck your situation promptly.
Save your points and use them on hotels instead, where the experience is just as risky, but at least fails in a less spectacular way when it goes wrong e.g. unless you're booking with an agent in a high demand area where there are NO hotels you usually can leverage a backup plan a lot easier than if you are stuck in an airport.
Yeah, after all these dumb dark patterns of low price on the price comparison site and a different price after passing all the stupid lies and upsell attempts of the reseller websites, I nowadays book with the airlines directly.
I've had similar bad experiences with hotel resellers. You book a hotel with Expedia and roll into a foreign town at 11 pm after changing a flat tire on the way and the hotel says "we never heard of you and we are full."
I've never been stranded when I've contacted the hotel directly, via their website or the phone. Sometimes a glitch does happen, but when it does the hotel will call around on your behalf and find you a room.
They’ve done the same thing in the past year for sure. It’s not simply “8 years old”.
Did we read the same article?
we'll see if regulators get away with saying you must be able to buy a ryan air airfare with an LM was a stupid as opus 4.6 (the last good one). Saying you must be able to buy Ryanair airfare with an immigrant as stupid as, and then give a version number and then say "the last good one" would get the EU regulator excommunicated.