Travel: Ryanair Passengers Urge O’Leary to Quit

The fiasco of Ryanair’s mass cancellation of flights has led pilots and politicians to demand the sacking of chief executive Michael O’Leary but the most damning indictment of the Irish airline boss comes from ordinary passengers struggling with the disruption.

The decision to scrap a staggering 20,000 flights has affected almost 700,000 passengers, many of whom have insisted that  O’Leary must go as they have expressed anger, disappointment and frustration.

They include the bride-to-be who was left stunned by a text message saying that her flight was cancelled just hours before she was due to depart on a hen party. Leanne Wall and 21 friends had spent months preparing to fly to Ibiza to celebrate her wedding.

Wall eventually found other flights but it meant her group had to split up and shell out an extra £3,000. “It’s taken the shine off the weeks before the wedding because I’m still trying to sort out the refunds,” she said. “It completely ruined my hen-do, They cancelled our flights at 6pm, when the office was closed.”

Another furious traveller was Kerry McAuley from Newtownabbey in Northern Ireland who had planned to fly with her family to London for a holiday which included a visit to Legoland near Windsor.

“I booked flights to London for February, 2018, which have now been cancelled,” she said. Ryanair has given her a flight credit to use within six months with the airline. “This is no use to me whatsoever and I am disgusted by the attitude,” she said.

Hugh Addison was looking forward to a trip to Lisbon when his flight from Stansted was cancelled with two days’ notice. Ryanair told him he could either claim a refund or choose another Ryanair flight. He claimed a refund and booked an alternative flight with TAP Air Portugal.

“The flight cost over double of the cancelled flight and we also lost a pre-paid night’s hotel accommodation,” he said. “Ryanair has been a total nightmare to deal with.”

Sean Grant from Belfast regularly visits London with his wife to attend Tottenham Hotspur matches. “We go three or four times a year, and were really looking forward to the Spurs versus Real Madrid game at Wembley on November 1,” he said.

Grant booked tickets with a different airline when he found out his Ryanair flight had been cancelled. “The cost of the new tickets is more than the total cost of the trip originally. This is a big match for Spurs but because of the extra cost, I am not sure we will enjoy it as much.”

Best friends Hayley Ruane-Musgrave and Claire Harpur were due to fly to the Canary Islands with their families at Christmas. They were left “devastated” after their flight was cancelled and they now fear they will have to abandon their holiday plans altogether.

They were planning to stay at Caleta De Fuste on Fuerteventura but they received a text from the airline saying “Please see your email regarding your Ryanair flight.” After receiving no emails they phoned Sunmaster, the package holiday company which organised their trips, and were told their Ryanair flights had been cancelled.

Initially they were told they would receive a refund but they were later advised to pay an extra £375 to re-book. The prices then went up to £505 a family, which they say they cannot afford.

The calls for O’Leary to go were joined by a man who knows very well that a high-profile chief executive can lose his job as the price of a marketing and PR disaster. Gerald Ratner was fired as head of the Ratners Group chain of jewellery stores after a 1991 speech in which he said some of his own company’s products were “total crap.” The public backlash wiped £500m off the company’s value, and Ratner was eventually forced out.

Ratner told the Times that there was one obviously appropriate course of action for O’Leary, who has deliberately made himself the provocative face of the airline’s cut-price and often cut-throat attitude to its passengers.

“I think that he should resign like I did,” Rather said.

 

by Bob Graham

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