I’ve mentioned Ryanair on this blog once before regarding their rather surprising move to stop honouring bookings made via price comparison sites. At the time I thought it was a bad move on their part, a PR disaster and I just found the way they dealt with the issue everso slightly offensive.
Seems like I hadn’t seen anything yet!
Dublin web designer Jason Roe wrote a blog post last week regarding a glitch he’d discovered on the Ryanair website which appeared to allow him a free flight.
Ok, As I was booking flights down to cork for the blog awards, I noticed something a bit strange. When I went to change my flight times, all of the prices on the flights had changed to “Total Cost of Flight 0.00”.
In the comment section of the blog post, someone purporting to be a Ryanair employee called Jason “an idiot and a liar” before going on to say that Jason led a “pathetic life“.
Now, if you were working in the Ryanair PR department, what would you do? Dismiss the blog commenter Ryanair Staff #1 as an imposter, thank Jason for his time in pointing out the error on the Ryanair website and offer him reduced price tickets on his next flight? Or would you write to The Times and say this:
Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy in corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.
Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.
Isn’t it good to see a company in these difficult times going the extra mile and acknowledging their customers in such a wonderfully unique way? I’m sure that, like me, you are now reaching for your credit card to book a flight with Ryanair. Either that or shaking your head and uttering the words “EPIC FAIL!”.
Still, what do I know? I’m just a lunatic blogger.
UPDATE: The Ryanair PR machine just keeps rolling…Today they announced they are considering charging customers to use the onboard toilets (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7914542.stm).
Chief executive Michael O’Leary told the BBC that the Dublin-based carrier was looking at maybe installing a “coin slot on the toilet door”.
Calling bloggers lunatics and idiots is one thing but charging people to use the toilet really is taking the piss..
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Thanks to @DaveNaylor for pointing me in the direction of the Times article. Who said Twitter wasn’t useful, eh?
UPDATE: Only just read Dave’s original piece over on his blog: http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/ryanair-get-bad-twitter-press.html
That’ll teach me to neglect my RSS feeds and focus on Twitter, won’t it? *sigh*
Well I wouldn’t worry if you need to take a piss on a ryanair plane you have to truly be desperate and so probably would pay for it.
Mind you have you see the new Safety Instructions?
Sounds to me like Ryanair deserves a few planes full of free-of-charge fees to open some eyes. I wonder who they’d point fingers at then?
@ Tim Hehehe. I’d not seen the safety instructions pic. Good stuff
@ Clyde I actually think Ryanair deserve a few planes full of nothing other than their own staff and a few steaming turds courtesy of people without the requisite change to use their onboard facilities…
In direct response to Jason’s story, I’ve set up a new blog - The Opposite of Ryanair and looking to highlight businesses that deserve the spotlight for good customer service.
Please blog your story and email the link so I can add it to the site.
Thanks
AJ
It’s bizarre to see a company handle their PR this way. The only way this action could be good for Ryan Air, is the number of links this action gained for the website of Ryan Air.
[ maybe one day they will charge an oxygen fee... or we just start to pee on the sits... who knows ]
Well it looks like giving PR team a good splash of water. Guess they were sleeping!!!
just booked my first trip with Ryanair a few weeks ago. As a starting blogger, I’ll definitely write about the experience if even the smallest thing is wrong. What were these PR people thinking? Cost savings, yes… but they clearly saved to much €€€ on professional PR people
Everyone knows, or should do by now, that Ryanair really don’t care that much about their customers - they operate on the basis that people will use them because they offer the lowest fares. They are probably right.
There’s a good selection of Michael O’Leary quotes here in the guardian link and Wikipedia has a section on their customer service. Personally I think their attitude to people is best summed up by O’Leary’s quote (see Telegraph link) “The longer and deeper this recession, the better”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/29/ryanair.theairlineindustry?gusrc=rss&feed=travel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/4436896/Ryanairs-Michael-OLeary-wants-to-be-the-Tesco-of-the-skies.html
Ben
Thanks for the links, Ben. I think it’s fair to say that Ryanair don’t put public perception too high up their priority list. As you say, they figure that their prices will keep business coming their way.
However I think in the long term this will come back and bite them on the arse.
Well, at least I hope so anyway…
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