Michael O'Dreary

DO you know what struck me as the most remarkable thing about the public reaction to the chaos which followed last week's suspected terrorism bust?

It's the fact that virtually no-one who got stuck at airports, sometimes queuing the rain, complained, even when holidays were being shortened as a result. Here were people whose plans were thrown up in the air, pardon the pun, but knew the alternative could have been much worse.

So how did the airlines, who stand to lose cash as a result, react? With the same quiet dignity, stiff-upper-lip-in-the-face-of-adversity which their oft-fleeced passengers did?

Er, no.

Let's quote from cnn.com:

Budget airline Ryanair, which was hoping to run a cancellation-free programme today for the first time since last Thursday, has been extremely critical of the new security arrangements.
The no-frills Irish carrier said the new hand luggage regulations were "nonsensical."
Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said his airline had seen a 10 percent drop in group bookings over the last couple of days as a result of the travel disruption. "We're seriously considering taking legal action against the Government to force them to get the airports back to normal," he added.

Mr O'Leary wanted the Government to provide extra staff at airports to ensure the extra security measures didn't hinder flights.

In a nutshell, his flights. The ones people use because they are cheap. Those passengers are then beaten around the head by Mr O'Leary to expect no real customer service at all, because they are travelling cheaply.

Ryanair recently posted profits of 115million euros. That's around £80million. Perhaps Ryanair could have hired extra staff to cope with the sudden increase in security. Or perhaps part of the deal with Ryanair from now on should be that it's cheap, but as a result the security is lax so you might get bombed midair.

Companies are great at bleating when circumstances beyond their control threaten profits. But what happens if fog delays a late flight by Ryanair into Stansted and the last, late-night train has left before passengers reach the station? Does Ryanair, as train operators do, provide alternative transport? Er, no.

In fact, Mr O'Leary felt no qualms at all in introducing what can only be described as a disability tax on passengers who needed wheelchairs in airports - by charging them to use them.

If circumstances beyond your control cost mean you can't fly, say a family death, can you get a refund? No you can't. I once tried to change a flight and was told I could do it but I'd have to pay the current price for the new flight - some £50 more than I had paid for the first flight. Did my original seat then go on sale at the price it had been sold for? No, it didn't. It went on for £75 more - because the flight had filled up more since then.

Yet when circumstances beyond the deep-pocketed Mr O'Leary's control put his profits in danger, he expects the government to come and help him out.

Is he laying on extra transport to get people to their destinations when their planes, delayed because of this extra security, arrive late? No. In fact, his website is warning that his planes won't wait for passengers held up by security!

Perhaps when he has a notion of customer service and prides himself on being fair to passengers, someone will listen. But all he's done here is prove that while his airfares might be cheap and cheerful (although the latter can often be called into question) he is merely the former.

(PS: British Airways call for compensation is also a joke. Perhaps when they can go a summer without some part of their team striking and wrecking thousands of holidays, they can start complaining about people ruining their summer.)

(PPS: Monarch Airlines has made similar calls. Where is its increased security? 12 year old boys have got onto its flights without tickets or passports. I didn't think that was supposed to happen even before the tightened security.)