The “Best Airline” With The “Worst PR”?

An amusing piece in The Spectator by Jonathan Miller sets out to explain just Why Ryanair is Europe’s best airline.

He contrasts the approach of Virgin Atlantic, which aims to be nice to customers and has “teetered on the edge of insolvency for years”, with Ryanair, which “doesn’t seem obsessed” with staff or customer morale, and is just all about getting planes in the air on time.

Miller isn’t full of praise for the actual experience of flying Ryanair. It is not exactly comfortable. Not exactly pleasant. The food? He “can’t imagine ever eating any of it”.

He has particular reverse praise for the press operation.

“Ryanair must certainly have the worst public relations department in the aviation industry, if they have one at all. Their insouciance is so blatant that it must be cultivated,” he writes.

It does have a press office, in fact it just sent me this, slagging off the EU for, as it sees it, letting rich long-haul passengers escape green taxes while short-haul customers stump up the bill.

But Miller has a point about Ryanair’s PR if not about the PR people.

He says “they simply don’t care what journalists write about them”.

They do a bit, but much, much less than nearly every other company of comparable size.

I think it has the PR exactly right, entirely in keeping with the brand.

It won’t fret about the little stuff, like the food, but it will get you there on time. If you want to whine about the seats, go ahead. But do you want to get to Sicily for £50 or don’t you?

And if it thinks the EU is “inexplicable and indefensible”, expect CEO Michael O’Leary to say so at the top of his voice.

I reckon doing PR for Ryanair must be a pretty good laugh.