Every week there seems to be another piece of news involving Ryanair and Michael O’Leary announcing another incredulous idea or fending off a PR nightmare. For example in the past few months the following has hit the headlines:
Ryanair charge £200 to fly dead man’s suitcase home 03/07/09
Ryanair promises to come clean over charges 03/07/09
Ryanair to make passengers stand 06/07/09
Ryanair may charge to use toilet 27/02/09
Ryanair says check in online or face £40 charge – then switches off website 16/06/09
Ryanair girl is a secret porn star 17/03/09
Ryanair passengers to put their own bags in the hold 24/06/09
Ryanair boss says swine flu only a risk for ’slumdwellers’ 28/04/09
Ryanair passengers to squat on stools 06/07/09
It took me a grand total of 5 minutes to find these links and I only used ‘Ryanair’ as the search term in Google. With this kind of marketing turbulance Ryanair are in danger of leaving their reputation in tatters (if they haven’t already).
If Ryanair were our clients I think that I would be recommending that Mr O’Leary stops acting as spokesman and they shelve the wild ideas for a while. Embark on some old fashioned market research to find out what their customers think and then start working on some brand damage limitation. A decent business marketing strategy would work wonders.
This year Ryanair announced their first ever loss and unless they apply some common sense to their marketing activities I doubt it will be their last. Stellios must be rubbing his hands!
