Classic Collection is to offer packages with Ryanair flights after its parent, On the Beach, entered into a partnership with the budget airline.
The trade-only operator said it will start selling Ryanair flights through its network of more than 3,000 agent partners ‘in the coming weeks’.
It said a new, dedicated contact centre team will service all its bookings with Ryanair flights. The new team will ‘ensure that both agents and their customers are completely up to date with the information they need in real time’, it said.
The news follows recent complaints from agents that they’re struggling to get through the Classic Collection on the phone, with some reporting waits of three hours or longer.
B2B Director Si Morris-Green said: “We acknowledge that our recent restructure has not been without its challenges, and would like to express our thanks to our agent partners for their patience and understanding.
“We have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to address the issue of wait times and we expect to see much improved levels of service over the coming weeks.”
He said Classic is ‘really looking forward to working with the UK’s largest airline group’, adding: “This development comes as a direct result of Classic Collection being able to leverage part of the Ryanair agreement with our parent company On the Beach.
“It will allow our trade partners to offer their customers a much wider selection of regional departures and thousands of new package holidays.
“These will be available with the highly competitively priced airfares that are associated with the Ryanair brand.”
Classic said that agents will be able to make Ryanair bookings via its trade portal ‘in the next few weeks’, following ‘extensive testing’.
Si added: “Ryanair flights represent a sizeable, value-focussed addition to our extensive range of existing airline partners. Now that our parent company has an authorised arrangement in place we will be able to reward our trade partners with more competitively priced product and travel options from Classic Collection than ever before.”