BRYONY GORDON: I complained about Ryanair after a bad flight - then nearly lost my home when their team came after me. Don't make my mistake
Way back in 2010, when I was young and (even more) foolish and genuinely believed that the crushed grapes in my nightly bottle of wine constituted at least two of my five a day, I made the mistake of doing an ‘Elon’.
No, not giving birth to scores of children in the hope of saving civilisation. And no, not clambering on to a stage and raising my arm in a gesture that could reasonably be compared to a Nazi salute.
My Musk-esque muck-up? I picked a fight with Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary.
Now, you might think the head of a low-cost Irish airline would be small fry to someone like Musk, who routinely uses his social media platform X to get into the ring with presidents, prime ministers and world-famous pop stars such as Taylor Swift.
But I know from personal experience that you start a spat with the former newsagent from County Cork at your peril.
Let me explain, just in case you’ve had your head turned by some of the other big arguments going on right now: Brooklyn vs the Beckhams, Rachel Reeves vs the hospitality industry, Trump vs the World.
A week ago, Musk took to X to criticise the 64-year-old airline boss for refusing to install his Starlink wi-fi on Ryanair’s planes. O’Leary claimed the antennas needed to do so would create a ‘fuel drag’ that would add an extra €100million (£87million) to the airline’s annual kerosene bill.
The Irish businessman pointed out that he was unlikely to recoup that money by persuading any of Ryanair’s cost-cutting customers to pay for wi-fi.
Michael O'Leary used his spat with Musk to launch a fresh promotional offer
Elon Musk took aim at the Ryanair chief executive in a series of tweets
After all, most of us who use the no-frills airline are barely prepared to pay for our own luggage, let alone the privilege of browsing the web on a short flight to Bulgaria.
Anyway, Musk – who it’s safe to assume travels on planes where the cabin crew push champagne into your hands, rather than scratchcards – fell for O’Leary’s expertly laid trap.
The wealthiest man in the world described O’Leary as an ‘utter idiot’ and urged Ryanair to ‘fire this imbecile’ (these were his kinder messages).
Warming to his theme, the Tesla boss created a poll where he asked his 232.5million followers if he should buy Ryanair ‘and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge’. Almost a million votes were cast, with 76 per cent saying he should.
But before anyone gets carried away, picturing Ryanair flights to Mars, I feel I need to warn Musk not to underestimate the wily powers of Michael O’Leary – or MOL, as his adoring employees at the airline refer to him in posts on social media.
Back in 2010, I had my own run-in with the O’Leary-run Ryanair. At the time, the airline CEO was in the habit of giving interviews saying he wanted to charge customers to go to the toilet on planes, and had even suggested stripping loos out altogether in order to cram in more seats.
As a result, I’d written a piece detailing my negative experiences with the airline. We’ve all got them – this is, after all, the company that plays a little celebratory jingle every time one of its planes lands safely and on time.
Anyway, having reeled off a long list of complaints about Ryanair – charges for forgetting to print out boarding passes, landing two hours late at airports nowhere near the city they are supposed to be in, ending up with chewing gum stuck to my bum – I wrote that I was willing to bet my flat and all of its contents that nobody had ever used the words ‘Ryanair’, ‘marvellous’ and ‘service’ in the same sentence.
The next day I woke-up to discover myself at the centre of a storm cooked up by publicity-loving O’Leary. ‘Ryanair is now seeking possession of the “flat and contents” of journalist Bryony Gordon,’ said a spokesman in a statement put out to the media, ‘since her claims that Ryanair passengers have never complimented our industry-leading service are clearly false.’
Pointing out a few positive comments from customers on its website, the statement concluded that ‘Ryanair has provided Bryony with the details of these web pages and is now seeking the keys to her apartment.’
A short while later, I received an email from someone at Ryanair providing me with an address to send my house keys to.
It seems Musk did not realise the extent to which Mr O'Leary would come after him
It was, of course, all a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun, and I retained the keys to my flat, perhaps on a technicality – none of the statements on the website used the term ‘marvellous’.
But what I learned from the experience is that Michael O’Leary is a truly masterful PR man, the kind of business brain who understood the value of trolling people for publicity long before Musk started doing it. And with this spat, a mere pupil has met his master.
Who could forget the time MOL proposed a fat tax for obese people wanting to travel on planes, later referring to them in an interview as ‘monsters’?
Or the moment he said he was going to start selling standing-only tickets?
All of these show a bloke who truly believes the old adage that all publicity is good publicity – any complaint about Ryanair’s crap customer service or minimal legroom is merely an opportunity to remind everyone about how cheap its airfares are.
And so it is that a slightly dull conversation about wi-fi antennas and fuel drag has given O’Leary the opportunity to host a press conference covered by the world’s media, and launch a sale of more low-priced Ryanair seats.
You’ve got to admire him for it in a way. Because in a world where it feels increasingly difficult to stand up to powerful egomaniacs like Elon Musk, a self-confessed ‘bullshitter’ from rural Ireland gives us all hope.
A victorious Princess of Wales
The day Wills and I beat Kate in that royal relay
Was I surprised the Princess of Wales won at curling against her husband this week? Not at all! When I took part in a relay with them at the Olympic Park in 2017, I saw how competitive they are. I was on William’s side, against teams led by Catherine and Prince Harry. Despite me slowing us down, we beat Team Catherine (but not Team Harry). Bravo to the Princess for finally exacting her revenge!
Time to call ‘cut’ on those endless films
I quite agree with the cinema boss who’s complained that films are getting too long. ‘I look at a lot of films and think “You could take 20 minutes out of that”,’ said Clare Binns, the creative director of Picturehouse Cinemas, this week. ‘There’s no need for films to be that long.’
Indeed, I’ve taken to googling a film’s run time before I commit to seeing it, so I can plan loo breaks, snacks, and whether that kids’ movie is too long for any child to actually sit through (I’m looking at you, Wicked: Part 1, at 2 hours and 40 minutes). Time for the directors to call ‘cut!’, don’t you think?
I have sympathy for the teacher who tried to sue Go Ape after breaking her leg on a slide ‘for three-year-olds’. For the uninitiated, Go Ape is a tree-top trail requiring helmets, harnesses and nerves of steel. I had to be taken down crying in terror while a ten year old gleefully jumped on a dangling platform behind me. Never again.
Happy Harry Styles Day!
Happy Harry Styles Day to all those who celebrate. Yep, after four years in the wilderness – well, training to get a really good marathon time of 2 hours, 59 minutes and 13 seconds in Berlin last autumn – the former One Direction star is releasing a new single today. Aperture is the first track from a new album, out in March, which will go by the name of ‘Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally’. What does it all mean? I haven’t the foggiest, but it sounds like an excellent motto for life to me.
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