Ryanair rejects critical findings of passenger group

Ryanair is rejecting a report which claims airlines seem "unconcerned" about the growing problem of lost luggage.

Lost luggage topped the list of telephone complaints received by the British Air Transport Users Council in 2001-02

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary says the report's findings are "typical of what you comes from the ATUC - there is very little fact in it - although Ryanair does pretty well in the report.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The figures are incorrect - we are knocking up approximately the same number of complaints per passenger as British Airways, who carry about twice the number of passengers as Ryanair.

"Ryanair is the second largest airline operating to and from the UK but we are number three in the list. What is remarkable about the numbers is we are probably most improved.

"Our number of complaints has fallen in the last year and the number of complaints in total to the AUC about all airlines has fallen by about 20% in the last year."

A Ryanair spokesperson says the company doesn't enter into correspondence with the ATUC because "they duck-out of addressing any of the real serious issues affecting consumers".

The spokesperson says these "serious issues" include service fees, travel agency commission, anti-consumer increases in airport charges and the publication of airline punctuality statistics.

He says: "Two years ago Ryanair carried seven million passengers, the ATUC received 138 complaints, last year Ryanair carried over 11 million passengers and the ATUC received only 77 complaints.

"Last year, 142.6 million passengers travelled by air to and from the UK, the ATUC dealt with only 1,163 written complaints. These figures speak for themselves."