Madam, - During 2006 Ryanair lost the first round of its battle to take over Aer Lingus and was named the world's least favourite airline by the renowned travel website TripAdvisor. But those were not the only bad results for Ryanair during 2006.
It recently lost its fight against a highly disgruntled former customer who set up the website www.ryanaircampaign.org to criticise Ryanair's business practices. It lost the case brought against it for the unfair dismissal of a former hostess who allegedly dozed off during a flight. It failed to stop a High Court case being brought against it by its pilots. It lost its fight with Irish travel agents and had to settle and pay travel agents a substantial amount for commissions overdue to them on passenger service charges.
If this interesting trend continues it might finally put an end to Ryanair's bullying tactics. Maybe we, the travelling public, should see the light, stand up to Ryanair and shout "enough". - Yours, etc,
JOSEPH O'BRIEN, Ard na Laoi, Ennis, Co Clare.
Madam, - Complaining about Ryanair is a simple sport, and something that I have tried to avoid as the company has done great things to make air travel what it should be - cheap and easy. Its treatment of passengers, however, leaves a lot to be desired and the service that I and my family received on New Year's Eve was nothing short of insulting and embarrassing.
On a trip from Dublin to Rome, our plane was delayed for three hours due to bad weather in Dublin. After boarding the aircraft we then had to endure another three-hour wait (on the plane), as the crew had to be changed because they would exceed the safe number of hours that they can work. I accept that these things can happen, but the crews seemed unable to deal with the situation properly. Passengers could not obtain any sort of refreshment ("The bar is closed and won't open until we are in the air"). Announcements were made in English only, even though more than half the passengers were Italian. In the end my wife translated the announcements for them (during the flight we then discovered that one of the crew was Italian). Once the flight finally got under way, Ryanair was "unable to offer any free beverages" (water included), but it could issue a receipt so passengers could get a refund by writing to the company afterwards.
The Italians to whom I spoke felt that the situation reflected badly on Ireland and had tarnished their holiday. Ryanair carries the majority of tourists into and out of Ireland and gives them the first and last impressions of our country. If its staff are not trained or motivated to treat passengers correctly, this can only reflect badly on the image of Ireland. At the moment it would appear that the only factor that Ryanair takes into account is the bottom line.
The final insult was dealt on arrival in Rome just over an hour before the end of the year. The air hostess welcomed us all to Rome, hoped that we would fly Ryanair again in the future and then, instead of wishing us a Happy New Year, simply said: "Good afternoon". In order to avoid loss of life, my wife decided not to translate this announcement. - Yours, etc,
RONAN DONOGHUE, Rome, Italy.