Website: "I Hate Ryanair" to close!

Ryanair is the discount airline that everyone loves to hate.  Overall, they are the 8th largest in the world by total passneger numbers but Ryanair is the largest airline in the world in terms of international passenger numbers carrying 66 million passengers  annually. They fly more international passengers than Lufthansa. Staggeringly they carry more international passengers than British Airways  and Air France combined. They operate   250 Boeing 737-800 aircraft on over 1,100 routes across Europe. 


On my Ranking of my most disliked airlines, Ryanair is Eighth). However, Tripadviser earlier in 2010 declared Ryanair to be the worst for amenities (4th year in a row). Reasons why Ryanair is disliked:
  1. Ryanair charge very low fares and then add extras like luggage and credit card fees (see my article: Discount Airline Ripoffs). Holiday Which?, said Ryanair is the "worst offender" for charging for optional extras. Check out this very very funny spoof of Ryanair's practices by Fascinating Aida (NB naughty language!). 
  2. Many of the airports they claim to fly to are nowhere near their destinations e.g. "Hamburg Lübeck", Germany is an hour by bus from Hamburg. Their Paris airport is Beauvais-Tillé, 85 km from Paris.
  3. They have been fined by Advertising Authorities several times 
  4. They have been accused of abandoning passengers at the wrong airports
  5. Covalence's 2010 annual ranking of the overall ethical performance of multinational corporations put Ryanair at the bottom 12
  6. Passengers arriving at an airport without a pre-printed online check-in have to pay €40 for their boarding pass to be re-issued
  7. Customer complaints can only be made via a premium rate phone line, by fax or by post
One passenger (Robert Tyler) who disliked them immensely set up ihateryanair.co.uk in February 2007. The site has acted as a place for passengers to share horror stories. In January 2010, Mr Tyler began accepting ads on the site which earnt him 365 pounds. 


Ryanair then took Mr Tyler to a domain name tribunal complaining "that the site took unfair advantage of the Ryanair name for commercial gain." The adjudicator agreed saying: It cannot be fair to take advantage of the reputation attached to another party’s trade mark in this manner, whether it be good or bad.” and has demanded that the doman naem "ihateryanair.co.uk" be handed over to the airline. 
Mr Tyler has simply moved the content to http://www.ihateryanair.org! Check out these other anti Ryanair websites

  • http://davefaq.com/Opinions/RyanAir-Sucks/
  •  http://www.ryanaircampaign.org/ 
  • Ryanair be fair (employee complaints). 

How an airline with four websites against them can continue to survive and grow makes you wonder!








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