O’Leary lets rip on consumer body ‘plonkers’

RYANAIR chief executive Michael O’Leary has called for the disbanding of the National Consumer Agency saying the money to fund it would be better spent on schools and hospital beds rather than “employing those plonkers”.

Mr O’Leary was speaking in Cork Airport as he announced the ending of Ryanair’s Cork to East Midlands and Cork-Glasgow routes.

During the press conference, Mr O’Leary was asked about the “screenscraping” saga, which has seen the airline cancel 450 tickets each day in its clampdown on flights booked via third-party websites.

Mr O’Leary said Ryanair had received a letter two weeks ago from “those noddies” in the National Consumer Agency, where, he claimed, “Celia Ahern [sic]” (referring to Bertie Ahern’s ex-partner Celia Larkin who is on the board of the NCA) and Eddie Hobbs “pull 30-40 grand a year for sitting on their fat arses doing nothing”.

“We had a letter saying it was terrible that we were cancelling the bookings. So we sent the overpaid consumer protection noddies a couple of examples of bookings where consumers were unknowingly charged 200%-300% overcharge and asked them what they were going to do about it. They said it was between the websites and Ryanair.

“Frankly we think the thing [the NCA] should be disbanded and use the money for children’s education or hospital beds because it is a complete waste of money employing those plonkers.”

Mr O’Leary said that the airline had received seven judgments in its favour over the screenscraper issue (where a third-party advertises and sells tickets) and one in Germany “where some fella who snuck into a court in Germany got an injunction against us”.

“That will be overturned in the next four weeks. We are absolutely certain we will win this battle. No one will make us back down on the ‘screen scraper’ issue, not the European Commission, not the Italian government, not nobody,” he said.

On this week’s incident involving the depressurisation of a Ryanair flight in Limoges, Mr O’Leary said the airline was examining the cockpit flight recorder and the data recorder and the cause would be known in two weeks.

“Contrary to a lot of reports the incident was perfectly handled by crew. The normal cause is that the pilot forgot to set the pressurisation switch but in this case it was set properly. We would have two to three pressurisation incidents a year, which is relatively rare when we are flying 400,000 flights a year,” he said.