Mail Ryanair Hypocrisy

Budget air carrier Ryanair is back in the news, and as so often, it’s for all the wrong reasons. CEO Michael O’Leary has for once opted not to brazen this one out, but to consume a generously sized portion of humble pie, after hitting punters with scores of flight cancellations, often at very little notice. This has hit the airline’s share price. It has also incurred the displeasure of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre.

The Daily Mail is not the only paper putting O’Leary on its front page - Metro, also owned by Associated Newspapers, has the headline “It’s a flight old mess”, and the Mirror simply says “THE SHAMING OF RYANAIR” - but the Vagina Monologue has clearly ordered an all-hands-on-deck hit job. “FLIGHTMARE … 400,000 passengers hit by Ryanair cancellation fiasco … £500m wiped off airline’s value … Boss admits ‘it’s a mess-up’ … weeks more misery to come” screams the front page today.

Michael O'Leary offers passengers a traditional Ryanair customer service greeting

The supporting articles come thick and fast: Mail Online wheeled out its “Chief UK Reporter” to tell readers “'It's not even my biggest cock-up': Ryanair boss insists 'only 2 per cent of customers' have been affected by mass flight cancellation as it's revealed 250,000 passengers WON'T get compensation”. Why oh why oh why?!?!?

Ryanair? F*** off, I wouldn't touch the c***s with a bargepole

Meanwhile, City Editor Alex Brummer whines plaintively “The sight of Ryanair’s egotistical chief executive, Michael O’Leary, waving his arms around and admitting the cancellation of up to 55 flights a day for six weeks is ‘clearly a mess’ will not reassure passengers … As many as 400,000 people are likely to be affected, their autumn breaks, business trips or visits to family overseas thrown into chaos because Ryanair has spectacularly mismanaged its pilot and crew rota”. And there was, unfortunately, more.

“It’s an appalling state of affairs for travellers who booked in good faith and have a perfect right to expect their flights to take off on the day they were advertised”. And there was the inevitable human interest story: “They would have left us stranded for a week: Ryanair refuse to help family-of-four after cancelling their flight from Spain to Manchester leaving them with nowhere to stay”. So the Mail is avoiding Ryanair like the plague, right?

Wrong.

A little application of the mystical art known as “five minutes’ Googling” brings you to Mail Online’s “Ryanair vouchers for September 2017 … Save with these Ryanair discount codes - 11 active vouchers”. And just to confirm that this is an encouragement to book flights with the carrier the Mail is slagging off as it plays the other side of the field, there are tips on Mobile Boarding Passes, Special assistance … and “Excellent Customer Service”!

Yes, the Dacre doggies want you to be horrified about Ryanair so they can flog a few more papers … and then they encourage you to book flights with them. The stinking hypocrisy from the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker was never so blatant.

And unlike Michael O’Leary, being Paul Dacre means never having to say you’re sorry.