Wednesday, September 05, 2012
How to win friends and influence people
I am not fond of Ryanair and avoid using it whenever I can. Nothing will surprise me about the many ways they seek to make money. Well, that was the case until I saw this article.
They say that after a flight last month from Alicante to Bristol, Suzy McLeod of Newbury took to Facebook to vent her anger at paying €60 each for boarding passes for herself, her parents and her two children, a total cost of €300. The reaction of Ryanair's owner, Michael O'Leary is hardly designed to win friends for his airline:
But Michael O'Leary yesterday ridiculed her failure to print out her own boarding cards. "As you know, there are no internet cafés in Alicante, there are no hotels in Alicante that would provide print-outs and no fax machines so that some friend or colleague at home could print them out and fax them down to you. Within a day, she generates 500,000 'friends' and fans on Twitter, all of whom hate Ryanair."
Mr O'Leary said that 99.98 per cent of Ryanair passengers print their boarding passes in advance: "To those who don't, we say quite politely: 'Bugger off' ". He added that Ms McLeod had written to him requesting compensation and "a gesture of goodwill", and he had responded by saying: "It was your fuck-up".
Still, at least Mr. O'Leary has got it right on Boris Johnson's madcap idea of building a new airport in the Thames estuary, even if the language is overly colourful. He dismissed the Mayor of London's proposals for a Thames Estuary airport as "Boris's bullshit that he dreamed up in a pub some Friday night".
They say that after a flight last month from Alicante to Bristol, Suzy McLeod of Newbury took to Facebook to vent her anger at paying €60 each for boarding passes for herself, her parents and her two children, a total cost of €300. The reaction of Ryanair's owner, Michael O'Leary is hardly designed to win friends for his airline:
But Michael O'Leary yesterday ridiculed her failure to print out her own boarding cards. "As you know, there are no internet cafés in Alicante, there are no hotels in Alicante that would provide print-outs and no fax machines so that some friend or colleague at home could print them out and fax them down to you. Within a day, she generates 500,000 'friends' and fans on Twitter, all of whom hate Ryanair."
Mr O'Leary said that 99.98 per cent of Ryanair passengers print their boarding passes in advance: "To those who don't, we say quite politely: 'Bugger off' ". He added that Ms McLeod had written to him requesting compensation and "a gesture of goodwill", and he had responded by saying: "It was your fuck-up".
Still, at least Mr. O'Leary has got it right on Boris Johnson's madcap idea of building a new airport in the Thames estuary, even if the language is overly colourful. He dismissed the Mayor of London's proposals for a Thames Estuary airport as "Boris's bullshit that he dreamed up in a pub some Friday night".
