I have a confession to make. I like Ryanair.

Yes, sometimes you have to pay more than you were led to believe you would for your flight.

Sometimes the staff can be jobsworths regarding the luggage allowances.

But if you have an Electron card, pick the right days and the right flights in advance, don’t buy food on the flight and don’t mind sometimes being a bit further from your target destination than you might wish, Ryanair is a bargain.

That’s the reason why so many people use the airline.

I’ve booked trips to Dublin and Rome for later this year and a total 12 flights have cost me less than £70. You can’t get that anywhere else.

In fact, it can cost more to get to Manchester from London.

I ignore the sometimes stroppy cabin crew, the often indifferent landings or the cost of food and suchlike that I just don’t buy.

The old adage that you get what you pay for comes to mind.

Like any flier, when suggestions are made about charging for toilets, I consider them to be a step too far and thankfully, so does Ryanair when the dust settles.

If you want more courteous staff, more frills, compensation or understanding for missed flights and putting the customer first every time, Ryanair is probably not for you.

Last night, Panorama broadcast a report about the ‘hidden charges’ Ryanair supposedly charge and other issues with their level of service.

I’m a big fan of the BBC and despite all the criticism of it by other media organisations, I think it does a pretty decent job as a public service broadcaster.

But as far as last night’s report on Ryanair was concerned, it undermined its credibility in a number of ways.

Starting off with a rant about luggage check-in desks being understaffed, the fact that ‘ruthless’ Ryanair had paid compensation may not have been ideal for the family who ended up missing their flight and having to rebook, but it was hardly the absolutely unsympathetic response the programme seemed to want to portray.

Later, there was a clip showing Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary’s resistance to taking part in an edited or recorded interview rather than a live or uncut interview.

As a former journalist myself, I appreciate his anxiety to ensure the interview is not edited and I am surprised that the BBC, so keen as it appears to have been to have an interview with Mr O’Leary, chose not to agree to that.

Even notwithstanding the potential for a ‘hatchet job’ as Ryanair feared, all journalists can edit or cut quotes and, even without intention, portray responses in a manner which distorts the interviewee’s opinion.

I can fully appreciate that Ryanair, based on the wealth of criticism about their service, including on a number of different BBC platforms, wanted their interview to be live or uncut.

The irony is that the BBC even posted an uncut interview with Michael O’Leary, which deals mainly with the debate between both parties regarding a live or unedited interview for the programme.

It makes a mockery of the BBC’s refusal to include an uncut interview which would have been best spent dealing with their concerns or points of interest and doesn’t paint them in a particularly positive light. You can see the clip here.
Ryanair’s initial response to the BBC’s request for an interview, assuming a ‘hatchet job’ and refusing to co-operate, is not the way a big company should deal with potentially aggressive media inquiries.

When the media come knocking, to refuse to offer your voice is to give the impression that you have something to hide, not to mention give more airtime to potential critics and dissenting voices.

Being proactive is the key – the fact that the Panorama journalist complained about Mr O’Leary dominating their interview says much for the CEO’s competence.

When undertaking media training, taking control of the interview rather than being boxed in by the journalist is one of the key skills PR consultants try to teach.

Whether criticism of Ryanair is justified or not, it was imperative of Ryanair not to be defensive and assume the worst, but to be as co-operative as possible.

To be fair to Ryanair, it mellows during the as time goes on, providing responses to detailed questions and even being brave enough to post all correspondence between themselves and the BBC on their website (see here)

What Ryanair has to realise is that, regardless of its customer service standards or additional charges which inflate the headline prices of apparently bargain flights, it is a company which has enjoyed a dominant market share because of its offering.

Ask any company CEO, pop star, sportsman, politician or celebrity and they will testify that the media will build them up and just as happily knock them down.

That’s the nature and consequence of success.

Are any of the Dragons in the Den or other famously successful entrepreneurs ruthless or simply commercial? Finding ways to cut costs and make money is a businessman’s raison d'être.

And while Ryanair offer such cheap flights, even doing a new free promotion today in response to the Panaoram debacle, I won’t be complaining too much.

Just don’t start charging for using the toilet please Michael.
 
 

When I undertake media training or suggest that it would be a useful exercise for my clients, I often encounter the same one or two responses:

“I’m so used to doing media interviews, I don’t need any more training”

OR

“I watch media interviews on television all the time – it’s not hard so I don’t need any advice thanks”

As a former journalist, I know how hard it is and I often think I’m glad I’m the one in control and not the one answering the questions.

And that, of course, is the trick. Control the interview, control the situation, remain calm and do not say anything you have not prepared or are not confident about saying ‘on message’.

So I was fascinated yesterday to hear the press conference undertaken by golfer Sandy Lyle in relation to some comments he made last week and ahead of the Open golf championship, which starts today.

For those of you who don’t know, Lyle was asked if he missed out on the coveted Ryder Cup captaincy after walking off after 10 holes of last year's Open.

Ill-advisedly, he compared that incident to Colin Montgomerie accidentally dropping his ball in the wrong place after storms at the 2005 Indonesian Open.

“What he did was far worse,” said Lyle last week. “Monty dropped the ball badly and that is a form of cheating.”

Lyle realised, especially in the world of golf, with its gentleman’s rules and high regard for respect, that his comments were both damaging and inappropriate, especially since Montgomerie was cleared of any misdemeanour at the time, issued an apology for his mistake and donated his £24,000 prize money to charity.

Whether he was advised or not, Lyle absolutely did the correct thing in calling a press conference to apologise for his comments.

When a media storm breaks, especially ahead of a major event, facing the media and apologising for an error is the best way of dealing with it and hopefully softening its impact.

If Lyle had not spoken, it would perhaps have prolonged the “feud” as the media would phrase it, and detract from the important matter of the golf.

He admitted that bringing up the Montomerie incident, purely as a comparison to his own error, was a mistake. His wording was crisp and measured, his delivery sincere.

And that should have been that.

But where Lyle made a huge error was to answer questions from the media rather than finish his press conference there and then.

Perhaps he had been suitably media trained. Perhaps he had been rigorously briefed about potential questions and answers, primed for all the inevitable interrogation that would come his way.

My advice to him, on this occasion, would have been to make his statement and leave it at that.

It gave the media enough to feed on and showed that he had been suitably concerned to face them after his mistake.

Whether he had not been briefed or simply forgot his answers, the result was disastrous – a car crash of a press conference which saw Lyle say of Montgomerie's 2005 incident that “It was one of his mistakes....it will probably live with him for the rest of his life. It'll be cropping up.”

After resisting the opportunity to speak, Montgomerie was fully justified in eventually making a calm and measured comment about Lyle’s press conference, simply saying “It's a rather strange apology to be honest.”

That understatement gave Montgomerie the high ground and leaves Lyle looking even more foolish, especially when George O'Grady, chief executive of the European Tour, chipped in with a statement, claiming Lyle’s comments “are considered wholly inappropriate and ill-timed.”

Avoiding the media is never a good idea. Fronting up and showing contrition is the best way to limit damage and rebuild a reputation.

But know what you’re going to say and don’t waver from what you’ve planned to say.

Lyle has lost the respect of a great many people because he simply did not follow those simple rules.

It will take a well-crafted communications campaign to restore his reputation but, to use his own phrase, no doubt, this incident will “keep cropping up” and it was so easily avoided.