Ryanair and a Lesson in Company Manners

Jason Roe, a freelance web developer from Ireland, discovered a bug on the ryanair website, where published fares are reset to £0.00 if you have the voucher section open at the same time (I just tried this and it works!)

Anyway, one irate Ryanair staffer started posting comments on Jason's blog post with remarks including,
- "you’re an idiot and a liar!!"
- "If you would work in your pathetic life on a such big project in a such busy environment with so little resources, you would know that the most important is to have usual user behavior scenarios working rather than spending time on improbable and harmless things"
- "Defensive aggression of Ryanair stuff is less than offensive aggression of customers and each (staff) member gains this gradually."

Many other comments are clearly offensive and unappreciative of the fact that someone found a fault in Ryanair's booking system and reported it in good faith.

So - The Times caught this story and actually spoke to Ryanair about it - who in their amazing style, wrote this back (emphasis mine).
"Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy in 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”.
Can I just say WOW. Not only did Ryanair confirm that one of their staff members interacted on that blog post, but they endorse it!

In the book The Rainmaker by John Grisham - a young man's family is fighting a giant insurance company to get a medical claim for a life threatening illness. The fictional insurance company sends him a letter in that book (made famous by the repeated emphasis the lawyer places on it in his lawsuit).
On seven prior occasions we have denied your claim in writing.
We now deny it for the eighth time. You must be stupid, stupid, stupid."
Sincerely,
Everett Lufkin, vice-president of Claims.

This fictional letter also seems to symbolise how much Ryanair needs to change its culture if it is to be a better managed organisation and one with a longer term future.

Ryanair, I hope you take note.

P.S: Just seen - Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary runs his car as a taxi so he can use bus lanes!

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