'I’m not giving Ryanair a penny' says man who changed his name to avoid fee

Ryanair is defending its use of fees to change names on airline tickets - after a man in the UK changed his identity instead of paying the airline a fee.

Adam Armstrong, from Manchester, was due to go on holiday to Ibiza with his girlfriend after her stepfather bought tickets for the pair.

The 19-year-old's name on Facebook is Adam West, in tribute to the actor who played Batman in the 1960s TV series.

His ticket was booked using the incorrect surname.

When he tried to change the name on the ticket, Ryanair told him it would cost £220, more than the cost of the ticket.

The name change fee is £110 per booking, and in this instance, according to Ryanair, he had made “two separate bookings”.

Instead of paying the fee, he changed his name by deed poll for free, and then spent £103 on a new passport.

“Yeah, I’m not giving Ryanair a penny,” Adam told Today FM’s The Anton Savage Show this morning, adding that he intends to revert to his original name once his passport expires.

The airline later released a statement, which read: "Customers are asked to ensure that the details they enter at the time of booking are correct before completing their booking and we offer a 24 hour ‘grace period’ to correct minor booking errors.

"A name change fee is charged in order to discourage and prevent unauthorised online travel agents from ‘screenscraping’ Ryanair’s cheapest fares and reselling them on to unwitting consumers at hugely inflated costs.

"Under our 'Always Getting Better' improvement programme, we have reduced our baggage, sports equipment, airport check-in and missed departure fees, as we continue to improve the Ryanair travel experience for the 100m customers we'll carry this year."

The chair of the Consumer Association in Ireland, Michael Kilcoyne, said that Ryanair could have easily sorted this case out.

"Ryanair tell us that they're now more customer-friendly," he said.

"However, I think in this case they could have accepted what happened.

"I suppose it's an unusual circumstances, but it shows that Ryanair is still very inflexible.

"In this case, there was a logical explanation for what happened. They certainly would have been able to check it out and I think that the excuse that they've given is really a bit weak, to say the least."