In the airline Public Relations (PR) world, lowly bloggers like those at Gadling get various degrees of attention. Younger, edgier airlines who realize the influence and flexibility of travel blogs are close with us. Legacy carriers who are rooted in their old ways of anti-technology don’t give two shakes about us, which is fine. But Ryanair? They don’t tolerate the blog world too well at all.
A recent posting by web developer Jason Roe shows just this. Roe posted an interesting article that suggested that he had found a way to book $0 fares on the Ryanair website. He was incorrect, in fact — the fare couldn’t actually be purchased and he had just found a loophole, but at the time it generated a lot of reaction. And among the commenters was who turned out to be a Ryanair staffer, whose many tirades include “jason! you’re an idiot and a liar!!”
Jason responded coldly, saying that a bug still existed, and so the spat began. Eventually, the official hand of Ryanair came in with a statement only slightly classier than the original staffer’s words, saying:
It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.
Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.
Clearly, the airline isn’t worried about offending anyone in the “blog sphere.” Perhaps after all of their negative campaigns and bad press they think that we’re already lost?
[Via The Register]