Customer complaints triple at O'Leary's 'best service' airline
Sunday June 07 2009
RYANAIR is on course to break its records for customer complaints this year. Michael O'Leary's low-cost airline, which describes itself as having "Europe's best customer service" has seen its passenger complaint numbers more than triple since the same period last year, according to figures released last week.
The figures for last April show that almost one person in every 1,000 passengers complained about Ryanair's service. This is up from about one person in every 3,000 flyers in April 2008. In April, the airline carried 4.7 million passengers, with almost 4,700 seriously narked.
March's figures were even more dire.
Ryanair blamed "snow related cancellations" for the extraordinary spike in complaints. Complaints rose fivefold, compared to a year earlier. Some 1.49 passengers out of every 1,000 flyers were less than amused.
This is almost 10 times the rate of complaints received by some US airlines.
However, Ryanair points out that in Europe all customer correspondence, including refunds, queries or booking changes, are classed as complaints.
Ryanair's customer service claim is largely based on having the best bag loss record and having the most flights arriving on time. Ryanair responds at jump speed, with 99 per cent of complaints answered in seven days.
Over the past six months, Ryanair passenger complaint numbers have increased for every single month compared with the same period last year.
On average, about 0.89 passengers per 1,000 flyers have complained over the last six months. With the airline forecast to fly nearly 67 million passengers this year, complaints could hit 59,600 passengers.
That's equivalent to the combined populations of Greenland, and the Falkland Islands, plus a few strays.
- Nick Webb
