Ryanair exec says new app is based off Tinder, because of course

Ryanair has come a long way in the past couple years. The budget airline has made huge efforts to make fliers hate it so much, making improvements across the board — from getting rid of its highlighter yellow seats to lowering ancillary fees to making its website more functional. Now, the airline will continue working on it's digital strategy, which is already much better than in the recent past (just look at this website screenshot from 2012), but still needs improvement.

Now Ryanair is trading in its very basic interface for a more sleek, sophisticated cross-platform approach (which, we'd like to assume won't include nearly-naked women with cheesy sexual puns, but you can never be sure with Ryanair).

This fall, the company's launching a new app, website and interface called My Ryanair. Chief Marketing Officer Kenny Jacobs said at a recent tech conference that the new design has been pretty much inspired by Tinder (because, of course it was):

We’re looking at how, for example, Tinder, a dating app used across the world, how they’re showing you people. That’s one of the ways we want to show you destinations on mobile. It’s a new mode, digital. We’re fascinated by what we’re going to do with it.

Before you start thinking that Ryanair is now using sex to sell in a different way, Jacobs explained the new strategy is about interacting with fliers using travel inspiration and shared content:

I think now we have a license to do things that we perhaps couldn’t have done in the past. People will say, ‘Of course I’ll book a holiday with Ryanair.’ If I open up the Ryanair app, and search for Barcelona, and get digital restaurant recommendations for Barcelona. If I have the social plug-in (I can share it). We can make money on that and customers will say, ‘That’s a really good service, thank you Ryanair.’ I think that’s the new type of ancillary that will emerge.

Ryanair's made a big effort to be more customer-friendly as of late, and so far it's been quite successful. So if this digital strategy really does end up being as helpful as Jacobs makes it sound, it could only help cement Ryanair as a budget airline that's really not so bad to fly.