Panorama expose results in 1.1 million free seats
So Ryanair have been in the news again, this time for the Panorama program aired on BBC1 last night. Did any of you see it?
I watched with amusement as Panorama higlighted the methods used by Ryanair to save on costs at every step of the way. The thing is…. don’t we all already know this? Aren’t we aware of the fact that Ryanair uses as many methods as possible to keep its costs down? Isn’t that why we… as a growing population in a time of recession… fly with them?
I know there are a lot of haters out there, I’m not a huge fan myself, but neither do I hate them. Customers are aware of what they’re booking when they book Ryanair. You won’t get an inflight meal, a hot towel or even a safety card most of the time, but you do get cheap airfares if you play your cards right and read the smallprint. And this is the key.
I remember a good few years ago, organising a Chartered Institute of Marketing event for my local Essex branch, in which we invited the Marketing Manager for Ryanair to speak (no-one in the travel industry turned up by the way, such is the love for them). It was an enlightening experience, not only because she was very upfront about what Ryanair is about, but also because she made us absolutely aware of just how much the ‘no-frills’ airline keeps an eye on its bottom line. She alluded to the fact that the marketing team are encouraged to never pay for advertising, they must by all accounts get any advertising free (using pr etc) as much as possible and that even things that you or I may take for granted at work e.g. the stationary cupboard, doesn’t exist at RY HQ.
The model that Ryanair uses, which I remember experiencing for the first time actually from a rival airline called GO (do you remember them?), is based on the consumer wanting a CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP price and nothing more. This has become even more paramount as the airline has started to use ‘unbundling’ processes to carve up its service, so that you literally do just pay for and get what you asked for.
The apparent disquiet about the cheap flights airline in the past few months has been due to hidden charges . My advice, make sure when you buy a flight you read the small print, make sure the right boxes are ticked/unticked, oh and use your own printer to print the tickets off.
Making the most of the PR, Ryanair pledged to “give away 100,000 free seats for every false claim they make.” Hence the airline’s website as of midnight last night offered ’1.1 million free seats’ available until midnight 14th October. They also published the full correspondance between themselves an the BBC Panorama programme, if you’ve got a spare half hour to read it all. I’ll stop short of actually linking through to their site as I’m sure they have enough free pr already.
Watch Panorama’s uncut version of O’Leary’s interview here
Hi my name is Emma Butler, I'm Marketing Director and Owner of 
