Ryanair and O'Leary apologise to EasyJet founder for 'Pinocchio' ads

RYANAIR AND chief executive Michael O’Leary apologised to the founder of rival EasyJet and agreed to pay about £50,000 (€59,700…

RYANAIR AND chief executive Michael O’Leary apologised to the founder of rival EasyJet and agreed to pay about £50,000 (€59,700) to settle a lawsuit over an advertisement that likened him to Pinocchio.

At a hearing yesterday at the High Court in London, lawyers for O’Leary withdrew allegations made against Stelios Haji-Ioannou in a series of advertisements.

In a half-page advertisement in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, Mr O’Leary and Ryanair apologised “unreservedly” for tagging a photograph of Sir Stelios as “EasyJet’s Mr Late Again” in a prior advertisement carried in the newspaper.

“It is not very often that someone as arrogant and as powerful as O’Leary is forced to apologise to someone else in public,” Sir Stelios said in a statement. “I took this legal action to protect my reputation. I am not a liar and that statement was libelous.”

READ MORE

The contested ads, published in January and February, said EasyJet hadn’t published its on-time flight statistics for 37 weeks and showed a picture of Sir Stelios with his nose elongated like the character Pinocchio, Sir Stelios’s lawyer Chris Scott said.

When Sir Stelios asked for an apology Ryanair refused and said the dispute should be settled with a sumo wrestling contest or a race around Trafalgar Square, Mr Scott said.

At the time of the ad’s publication, Sir Stelios was a non-executive director of EasyJet, Mr Scott said.

The apology relates to the personal allegations made against Sir Stelios in the advertisements, he said. “Both Michael O’Leary and Ryanair accept that Sir Stelios is not in any way responsible for EasyJet management’s continuing failure to publish weekly details of their on-time stats,” Mr Scott said.

Sir Stelios said the money will be donated to charity. “I would like to dedicate this little victory to all those members of the travelling public who have suffered verbal abuse and hidden extras at the hands of O’Leary,” he said.

Ryanair said in its own statement the settlement with Sir Stelios won’t stop it from pushing EasyJet to publish performance statistics. “Ryanair believes they have been hiding these details since May 2009 because they know they can’t compete with Ryanair’s punctuality, just the same way EasyJet can’t compete with our pricing,” it said. – (Bloomberg)