Ryanair Giving Away 1.6 Million Free Flights

Published by djmick on October 16th, 2009

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Ryanair are giving away 1.6 million free flights after being criticised in a BBC documentary, or perhaps I should rephrase that.

Ryanair are giving away 500,000 free seats after the first batch of 1.1 million seats were snapped up.

The free flights move comes following heavy scrutiny of the airline on BBC’s Panorama documentary “Why hate Ryanair?”, which aired on Monday night.

Ryanair responded to the criticism by announcing the release of 100,000 free seats for the 11 “lies” or “false claims” made in the documentary.

The company called the documentary “a hatchet job” that “uncovered – nothing, nada, rien, diddly squat”.

The airline also listed 11 points from the documentary that it claims were false or misleading.

Among these points include accusations that the airline “had no respect or dignity for pilots or cabin crew, that “people feel cheated by Ryanair” and that its chief Michael O’Leary “is a bully”.

Producers of the show refused an interview with Ryanair’s head Michael O’Leary after he insisted it be run unedited.

“BBC Panorama is now clearly on the back foot. Yesterday they falsely claimed that Ryanair was looking for ‘editorial control’. This is rubbish. All Ryanair asked for was an uncensored interview so that Ryanair’s answers were not cut or edited to suit Panorama’s hatchet job agenda,” Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said.

“Just to prove that this Panorama programme is rubbish, Ryanair will give away 100,000 free seats in November and December for every false claim made by Panorama.”

The company have one of the best publicity and marketing teams in the UK. They always seem to grab the headlines and turn them into a positive and endless free advertising.

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