Aer Lingus is still 50% dearer, says Ryanair
Only Aer Lingus would know about their own customer service performance because, unlike Ryanair, they consistently refuse to publish their punctuality statistics and customer service statistics.
They don't even release this information to their own association, the Association of European Airlines unlike the rest of its members.
"We have been a low fares airline for some time," says Grainne O'Malley. Are Aer Lingus having a laugh? Their fares are still 50% more expensive than Ryanair's. Ms O'Malley assures us that "traditional values" will remain one presumes she is referring to Aer Lingus' tradition of charging rip-off high fares, its tradition of awful punctuality, its tradition of losing passengers' luggage and tradition of not responding to customer complaints for a month or more.
Ms O'Malley suggests that serving tea and coffee is special.
Tea, coffee, sandwiches and snacks are available on all Ryanair flights. Ryanair also provides free services for disabled passengers and flies direct on 132 routes throughout Europe.
With regard to the recent fog disruption at Dublin airport, Ms O'Malley is not presenting your readers with the facts. Aer Lingus had "indefinite delays" (their words, not ours) on flights that weekend and did cancel flights.
In fact, Shannon was closed because of the number of diverted Aer Lingus planes sitting on the tarmac Ryanair cancelled flights and immediately scheduled new flights to replace them, meaning that passengers travelled as soon as the weather permitted.
If Aer Lingus are serious about customer service, why don't they follow Ryanair's example and publish their punctuality and customer service statistics each week and month?
So far the only way in which Aer Lingus is "way better" is hiding their performance stats! For the record, in July 2003, Ryanair received 0.35 complaints per 1,000 passengers carried.
Paul Fitzsimmons,
Head of Communications,
Ryanair,
Dublin Airport.
