Ryanair & the ‘Lunatic’ blogger

By Niamh Hennessy

Thursday, February 26, 2009

IT’S not difficult to raise the hackles of Ryanair, but blogger Jason Roe was shocked by the ferocity of the response after he went online with his scheme to secure free flights.

Not known for its customer service, the no-frills airline hit back at the cost-cutting measure by calling him a "lunatic" and "an idiot" in a battle of the blogs that has made it on to the CNN news website.

Mr Roe, who is a technology consultant, was booking flights from Dublin to Cork when he thought he discovered a way of avoiding credit card charges.

He posted the details of what he had done on his blog.

"Basically, when I had two browser windows open, one session seemed to overlap with one another. This resulted in prices being reset to e0.00 on the schedule pages," he said.

The booking was cancelled before it was fully processed but Mr Roe posted his discovery on his blog.

Ryanair staff responded in a style that would have impressed boss Michael O’Leary.

One employee logged on to Mr Roe’s blog calling him "stupid" and a "liar". The tirade continued: "You are so stupid you don’t even know how you did it!"

Mr Roe said he was "shocked" by the reaction.

"I’m genuinely a fan of what Ryanair are trying to do in the Irish marketplace. Up until now, I would have been in favour of the company’s no-nonsense attitude.

"That said, I think that there are some lines that should not be crossed, personal decency and respect being some of them."

Mr Roe said he sat back for 10 minutes to compose himself then did a little research and found that the IP address (the website’s location) the Ryanair employees used was from the airline’s headquarters.

A Ryanair spokesman said the airline’s staff are "far too busy driving down the cost of air travel" to engage with "lunatic bloggers".

He did, however, 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," he said.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, February 26, 2009