Expedia may not be dead but it looks like Ryan air wishes they were

In March Expedia and RyanAir agreed to be best friends. They announced a partnership with Expedia to take over from OctopusTravel reseller Needahotel as the land provider on RyanAir.com. At the time of the announcement I recalled a story from 1999 when I was working for Expedia and on a conference panel with RyanAir CEO Michael O'Leary. At the time RyanAir was so convinced that all online travel would be sold consumer direc that he turned to the crowd and said

"Expedia's Dead"

With that kind of background, the deal was never going to work. 19 months later the deal is on its death-bed. RyanAir have announced that they are terminating the deal next month (it is not dead just yet) saying (according to CNN) "Expedia has failed to make payments according to the pair's contract terms". A fight to the death?