Ryanair boss makes Twitter gaffes

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary made a series of gaffes yesterday when he hosted the airline’s first live Q&A session on its new Twitter page.

Predictably, the outspoken CEO (pictured during the session above) received a barrage of abuse from some customers and fielded most of them off in his usual tongue-in-cheek style. A fair number of the tweets were also in support of the airline.

But O’Leary came under fire for one of his first responses, to a question from a female, to which he replied: "Nice pic. Phwoaaarr!"

The comment was quickly re-tweeted, with responses such as "People who fly Ryanair: do you also think this is an acceptable thing to tweet at a woman?" and "@Ryanair how is it appropriate for an airline CEO to be a sexist pig?".

O’Leary was also ridiculed for not understanding how Twitter works because it seemed he didn’t learn how use the correct hashtag until 20 minutes in to the 1hr 10 min session.

"When do you start your classes in learning how to use Twitter?" said one participant, to which the CEO joked back "Just making this up as I go along."

The Q&A session was part of Ryanair’s new approach to customer relations, where it is now inviting passengers to give feedback in a bid to improve its service.

O’Leary was criticised by the airline’s shareholders at a meeting last month for coming across as too "macho" and the CEO promised that Ryanair would try to stop doing things that unnecessarily "p*** people off".

It seems that the new approach has come too late for some passengers, who had gripes about baggage charges, the location of the airports used by Ryanair and the rudeness of the airline’s staff.

Here are some of the tweets that O’Leary received:

"Tried to send you a question on Twitter but it ended up on Facebook instead. Still, by your standards that’s close enough."

"What type of people do you enjoy mistreating most? I’m guessing elderly and disabled?"

"What plans have you to make @Ryanair even more uncomfortable for people?"

"I’ve sent one #GrillMOL tweet to @Ryanair and already an invoice for £18.50. Or £18.25 if I take their credit card."

"How much will Michael charge per reply? And are you charging me to send this tweet?"

"Were you born an arsehole or has it progressed throughout your life?"

"Is it company policy for your staff to be rude and unhelpful as possible?"

"Is there any truth in the rumour that you plan to charge passengers for each inhalation they make after take off?", to which the CEO responded with: "Hi Beth, great idea. Have a team workin’ on it as we breathe!"

"Is it true that one in four Ryanair flights is fueled by leprechaun urine?", to which O’Leary joked "Dat’s an outrageous slur. All [Ryanair] flights are fuelled with Lep wee and my bulls**t!"

When one member of Ryanair staff joined in, saying "So my boss is on Twitter right now," he got the immediate response "Get back to work you slacker or you’re fired."

Ryanair today said it was pleased with the high level of interest #GrillMOL received and said it would certainly look at holding another question and answer session soon.