Absolutely hilarious, fantastic - and typical - response from Ryanair to recent shenanigans:
Stephen McNamara from Ryanair said:
"Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion.
"It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again.
"Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel".
Go ahead, make their day...
UPDATE 3: This is why Ryanair is a genius of PR.
UPDATE 2: Alex Bainbridge of TourCMS has huge - and valid - doubts over Rowe's original stance and the media's - i.e. ours - reaction to it. We've posted a response.
UPDATE 1: Paul Dawson of Conchango has created the Lunatic Bloggers Fightback scheme. A step too far perhaps?
Picture: Mad Blogger, somewhere in the blogosphere.
"The only thing crazier than bloggers is OUR PRICES!"
Does Stephen McNamara understand he just spat in the face of the irish public with that statement
This guy is head of COMMUNICATIONS!!
Like Mr McNamara cares what the Irish public thinks... If it's one thing we've learned about Ryanair, is that they view the traveling public as sheep with wallets.
Anyway, anyone else find the 'spat' more than a little amusing?
@Tom - do you think he cares?
Oh my God, bloggers will have him and Ryanair for breakfast..
@Tom, it's not like they're unfamiliar with that approach.
Just hilarious. Maybe it is time to rip up the 'how to do PR' rulebook. After all, there's no such thing as bad PR... right?
You could not make this up! There attitude on this from day one has been unbelievable....
"We are to busy driving down the cost of air travel" classic....
Perhaps he meant we are to busy driving down the cost of air travel unless we have a tiny bit of time to demonstrate how inept we are at customer service or if we have the opportunity to insult some people directly...in these case's we can spare a tiny amount of time away from driving down the cost of blah blah blah
Amazing how even given the chance to hold their hands up and say Ryanair has dealt with the matter in house, they aren't even prepared to do that...
RyanAir have announced the final solution to driving down cost of air travel. They have now abolished aeroplanes and replaced these with a personal kite (£10 charge each way) which will be attached to each passenger. They have abolished all airport fees by using the White Cliffs of Dover as a starting point. Passengers are now pushed off (£5.00 charge each push) off the cliffs, when the wind is blowing in the right direction for their travel. A RyanAir Communications Director said "Squawk, mutter, CAA, Lunatics, mutter, I am a pink teapot"
At least their strategy is clear in terms of communication: they don't believe in bloggers.
Two points:
1/ Why Stephen has also added "idiot" before blogger is beyond me though.
2/ I don't understand why in your post you've allowed a direct link to Ryanair website (they don't believe in you... remember, so why promoting them on Travolution site)
Guillaume (who flew Ryanair once and will never fly with them again)
@guillaume
Not sure why we should refuse to link to a company just because it's been nasty (but essentially, very honest in its opinions - a nice change for the travel industry) about bloggers.
I don't think Ryanair is referring to us - rather the tech/developer blogger who they originally had the row with in his comments section.
Might be wrong though... :-)
Kevin (who flies with Ryanair reasonably regularly and will be doing so again to Berlin in a few week's time)
The quote is "It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again."
"Lunatic bloggers" with a "s"
I don't read this comment only addressed to Joe.
Have you tried Air Berlin?
The official response from Ryanair is woeful at best. You would think that the PR department would know better.
Thought I would write a different perspective on what is going on here
http://www.tourcms.com/blog/2009/02/24/ryanair-booking-bug-lunatic-bloggers-another-perspective/
Storm in a tea cup!
I hope reddit has a field day with this one. http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/7zyok/ryanair_can_confirm_that_a_ryanair_staff_member/
He's taking bloggers for a ride, you fools! Stop talking about it or turn your pages black or something. =)
This response is very funny. Why can't more companies just say what they think like Ryanair? Life would be so much more entertaining.
The 'take us or leave us' approach to PR doesn't seem to be hindering column inches about the company does it?
Maybe they drove down the cost of air travel too much, as they have driven all the legit airlines into bankruptcy.
@Kevin. Yes, go Air Berlin. They actually treat you like a human being. I flew down to Munich with them. Great service, good prices. Not as cheap as RancourAir, perhaps but I don't mind paying a few quid extra if I am going to be treated as a sentinent being.
Competition time - response from an RancourAir Oik - 5 pts, Rancour Air Director 10 points, Rancour Air Director with full blithering - 15 points. Full on rant complete with psychotic rambling from the man himself - 100 points.
@murray - you misunderstood my comment. I am flying Ryanair TO Berlin, not on Air Berlin.
@flyboy: silly comment, inaccurate.
How long before someone at RyanAir wakes up and realises that bloggers are customers too - or in this case ex-customers (with a big readership)?
Will it be before, or after, this shitstorm of protest outranks the RyanAir website in all major searchengines? Someone at RyanAir needs to get a clue.
Also, didn’t the use of the word ‘lunatic’ go out with the Victorians? Obviously I am far too PC to work at the Ryanair press office. Overall, think still very funny though.
I presume Ryanair would have considered Holiday Watchdog, Holiday Which, every travel journalist and consumer group as "Lunatics" in the days before the web?
Is it possible that a web-based business can be so naive as to think they dont have to interact with their customers chosen medium of comment?
Of course, the whole reaction is a brilliant pr coup; we are still talking about Ryanair and giving them air-time when perhaps their actions actually deserve the opposite?
Another reason why I will never fly Ryanair...
This is hilarious - fair play to Ryanair for spotting the opportunity to generate some more PR. It's like running in to the Scrabble World Championships and shouting "Scrabble is for losers" and running out again. They're just trying to get some attention.
I'd suggest to the bloggers taking it seriously (e.g. Tom and Anna L), as a bog standard blogger myself, relax, they're just having a bit of fun at your expense! It's not like Ryanair hasn't been the butt of plenty of jokes itself over the past 10 years!
..and they don't even know how many of them waste their time on facebook..
isn't everyone a blogger these days? i agree with Tom above that Stephen McNamara just spat not into the faces of the irish public but also in the faces of the general online crowd. and he certainly does not realise that the online crowd and these 'crazy bloggers' are all potential customers. i had already decided not to fly with them again a couple years ago but i hope that many other people will feel similarly now.
Ha ha ha...great, Ryanair will get so much publicity for this, its like they set it up! Free advertising, targeting a sector that probably don't fly them anyway because of their moral outrage at being thought of as sheep....and still most flights tomorrow will have more bums on seats than any other airline. Sure its all great craic!
His response is just goddamn awful! i can't believe this hasn't hit news headlines.
Seriously, did PR allow him publish that statement????
Reena:
I think you will find it has already.
Times
Telegraph
Sky
CNN
This is what they are after, any publicity is good publicity for Ryanair!