“Lunatic bloggers can have the blogsphere all to themselves”
Conor Pope
Any time anything even remotely critical about Ryanair appears on the Pricewatch page (and, amazingly there have been people who have wanted to give out about the airline, for whatever reason) it is inevitably followed by a furious letter to this paper from their “communications” depatment. They write to a range of people in the company, including some whose names they can’t spell (but that’s another matter) to complain about my anti-Ryanair bias. While the letters are frequently abusive and often hysterical they have, so far, tended to stop short of calling me a lunatic. This poor chap wasn’t so lucky. CNN is carrying the story, which to my mind at least, suggests there are a number of unhinged people working out in the Ryanair HQ in Dublin Airport.
7:22 pm
Ryanair delights in being offensive – particularly to those it feels it can bully (i.e. its customers).
Ryanair has pursued a policy of threatening legal proceedings against the ISPs of websites that carry complaints against the airline However, it has had as little success in stifling unwelcome publicity despite its bluff and bluster.
Last week this airline unilaterally changed the schedule of my flight from morning to night so that I will now miss my connecting flight and will also need an overnight stay in Dublin’s overpriced hotel accomodation (BTW booking hotels on Ryanair’s site is almost always a bad move – it is cheaper to contact the hotel directly and haggle). I attempted to contact Ryanair to see what it would do to compensate me. I discovered that Ryanair has made it impossible to contact anyone who is in a positition to discuss effective recompensation. I have now decided to do it the hard way (for Ryanair). This is how you deal with this consumer-unfriendly outfit:
1. Fax a warning that unless your right to compensation pursuant to Regulation EC No. 261/2004 is acknowledged within 21 days you will issue proceedings without further warning.
2. Go to your local small-claims court and issue proceedings.
Putting back your flight by several hours is “delay” within the meaning of the Regulation. In most cases, compensation of €250 will apply. (I’m a reasonable guy. I will only be claiming for my hotel, 2 premium rate phone-calls, and the new flight home)
Ryanair will now need to send it’s lawyers down to a provincial court to defend my claim. Moreover, because proceedings have issued in the SMC, irrespective of outcome, it will not be able to recover its costs. I reckon that this exercise will cost it several thousand smackers – rather more than the cost of providing an effecture complaints procedure.
I willkeep you posted on the progress of my claim.
Comment by peter murray