Why are Ryanair making it more difficult to book flights with them?

You've needed a Ryanair account to book flights since around 2016. Not sure what you're referring to when you say "Signature verification, "Liveness" check, uploading of documentation". None of this was needed on my recent booking.

Are you sure you are going through their official website?

This happened me over Christmas when I was booking a flight for a family member. First time I ever seen it

Had a similar issue last night, with new facial recognition etc. Preserved and got there in the end.

The facial thing, is to login into your account more securely and faster. I've just done it there and it takes a few seconds. I went and did a dummy booking to Lapland and all was good!

Yeah I use the Google account option, it creates a Ryanair account for you via your Gmail so you probably do have an account without realising it. A lot of 3rd party websites and services use the "login via Google" as an option for creating a user account, as it saves time filling out a form to setup an account and pulls the information from your Google account. You can check this by going to https://myaccount.google.com and sign in with your gmail details. Click "Data and privacy", then under Apps and services, there's a "Third-party apps and services" panel that shows you which websites you have an account with via your Google account.

If you ever clicked "continue with Google" at a prompt (like below), you're logging into a Ryanair account, Google just manage the logging in part:

Probably when you downloaded the app, you signed in this way and the app has you signed in permanently. You can check this by clicking on the account bubble top right of the app home screen, it would usually show up as your initials, and you can see all your account info in here.

If you're on a computer where you're not already signed into Ryanair, you might see the above prompt, or if you're using a different browser or have cleared the browser cache/history, it would require you to login again. Clicking continue with Google will open a Google login prompt.

Not sure if that makes things any clearer but hopefully it makes sense. I can't comment on the facial recognition stuff, I've not seen that before

Makes sense, presumably not required for anyone with an existing active account

Worth noting that Ryanair isn't an airline on the travel comparison sites anymore. It is believed that this is due to a permanent injunction Ryanair has on one of them

They still show up on Google Flights (my go to for price comparison) and Skyscanner, and I would have thought these are the two big players when it comes to price comparison? Unless you're talking about travel agent type sites that actually re-sell rather than just search and point you in the right direction or the results themselves, which don't give you any re-sellers now?

People looking for package holidays I imagine, book hotel and flight in a single transaction, or if they only want to pay a deposit and pay the rest later. I'm not a fan myself, I prefer the DIY method. Also letting a third party look after my flight and hotel booking would make me nervous given some horror stories I've heard in the past.

By booking a flight package of flight and hotel together, you get package holiday protections

Ryanair like Google flights, and have gone on record as saying it's good. They like it because Google flights redirects you to booking with the airline. I suspect the only thing keeping Sky Scanner out of their good books is they also link to buying the flights from the likes of ebooker and other third parties.

My wife had to give up as well last week. She couldn't pass the liveliness test, after an incredibly frustrating hour.

I also noticed the other day Ryanair weren't on my corporate flight booking system (Concur) or Skyscanner. Might have been a temporary thing, but made my trip to Spain a lot harder to organise.

I am having the same problem, I had an account years ago with an obsolete email address so set one up with my gmail address on Thursday. I can see the account but it insists "In order to make a booking with Ryanair you are required to create a verified myRyanair Account". I can select the flights but at the last stage it comes up with a window wanting to verify the account before payment, there are 2 options Express and Standard - neither work. Express costs 69 cent but does not request payment, I also tried standard and uploaded my id and signature. I spent 3 hours today and the last chat I had the representative typed "I believe I have already provided all the necessary information. Thank you for contacting Ryanair and have a nice day!" He didn't tell me how to do anything, what a waste of time, I had to cancel my hotel and trip.