Ryanair has a problem in its stance on the oversized cabin bags row – and not with the fact that it offers staff commission for any oversized luggage they detect.
The problem is trust.
Under Michael O’Leary, the airline has built its reputation on straight speaking.
It offers a no-frills service and you get what you pay for. It will tell you quite bluntly what you can expect and what you cannot and it is not overly concerned if it ruffles some feathers in the process, whether that is among its passengers or among consumer advocates.
READ MORE
And that’s fine. Really, it is. Everyone knows where they stand if they fly with Ryanair. The airline will almost always get you where you want to go when you expect to be there. On the rare occasions it doesn’t, that’s generally just the passengers’ bad luck.
Part of the deal is you pay for every accommodation – baggage, being first on the plane, sitting in more-favoured seats, getting your boarding card printed at the airport, food, water, whatever.
So it would have come as no surprise to anyone that in its relentless pursuit to streamline operations, the airline would incentivise its staff to identify cabin baggage that, however marginally, exceeded the permitted dimensions.
[ Ryanair looking to boost staff commission to tackle ‘scourge’ of oversized bagsOpens in new window ]
Nor that it should be deaf to any clamour alleging it had shrunk its bag sizers.
The problem is that one of Mr O’Leary’s senior lieutenants went on air and said expressly: “We don’t pay our staff commission for bags.”
That, as we now know, is not true.
Ryanair is very quick out of the traps – generally within hours – to address any perceived inaccuracy in reports on how it conducts its business.
It is not credible that it and the people it pays to monitor media coverage would not have been aware for three months that, in commenting on what was at the time a high-profile issue, a senior executive had made a statement entirely at odds with the truth, misleading passengers and the wider public.
Being straight speaking is one of Ryanair’s unique selling and branding points.
If passengers cannot take Ryanair at its word, however blunt, it risks breaking its unspoken contract with its target market. This time, Ryanair needs to show that it knows how to say “sorry”.
Cantillon, named after Irishman Richard Cantillon who was known as the “Father of Political Economy”, is a column in which Irish Times business journalists offer analysis and comment on business and economic issues of the day.
