O’Leary’s ‘not fair’ comment gives a taste of his own medicine
The words of Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary.
Were his credit card charges extortionate?
Had he missed his check-in by 30 seconds and been told he was too late to board, although he could buy another ticket and take the same seat he had already paid for?
Had he produced a slightly faded print-out of his online check-in ticket and was told he couldn’t fly?
Did he have to wait for hours as he hadn’t paid for priority boarding?
Was his baggage too heavy?
Was he too heavy?
Had he forgotten to bring coins for the onboard loos?
Did his Ryanair sandwich cost more than the flight?
Everyone has a Ryanair story. The airline we love to hate has changed the way we fly. It has changed – for the good – the amount we expect to pay; it has changed our notions of flying as an exotic way to travel, but it has also changed – for the bad – the way we expect to be treated at airports and on flights.
There is a sense of relief when you book, say, an Aer Lingus or British Airways flight. You know that, whatever happens, you will be treated with kindness and courtesy, even if the staff are harried and under pressure.
Try going online and Googling ‘Ryanair passengers stranded’ and you will have enough material to fill a Stephen King horror novel.
Here’s one: Ryanair leaves passengers stranded at Stansted.
It happened at the start of August last year when hundreds of passengers who were trying to board flights at Stansted Airport in London were left behind after overstretched staff failed to check in luggage in time.
One man caught up in the melee was the broadcaster David Dimbleby. “It’s a nightmare. Ryanair have abdicated responsibility,” he was quoted as saying. “They have not spoken to any of these people, there have not been any public announcements and they have not said when the flights are called. The police are here with machine guns, supposed to be protecting us from terrorists, but they end up protecting Ryanair ticket sellers. It’s absurd,” said Mr Dimbleby.
It is now the turn of Ryanair to do the complaining and O’Leary is nothing if not an accomplished whinger.
He described the notion of passengers seeking expenses in such extraordinary circumstances as “ludicrous”. and called for the suspension of passenger compensation rules which entitle passengers, even those paying €20 or €30 airfares, to reimbursement for hotel and other expenses.
“Hotel expenses could run to many hundreds of euro; it’s just not fair, nor is it appropriate when you are dealing with unprecedented act of God.”
His argument seems to be one of proportionality, but this line of reasoning is skew-ways. If proportionality was a real concern for Ryanair, they would surely not expect the €200 passenger to pay the same for an onboard sandwich as the €10 passenger, yet they do.
Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara defended the airline’s decision: “Unlike some insurance companies, we are not washing our hands of our customers, and we are simply clarifying what we consider to be a reasonable level of reimbursement. The EU regulations were never designed for a situation like this,” he said.
Fine Gael MEP Gay Mitchell put it well yesterday, on RTÉ’s Pat Kenny programme. “If you are in the profit and loss business, you cannot just be in the profit business. Everyone in business takes a calculated risk and you take the good days with the bad days.”
O’Leary is only prepared to respect the good regulations, like the EU law that opened the skies to deregulation in the 1990s and allowed Ryanair to flourish.
You don’t hear him whining about that.
