Ryanair today (Friday, 2nd October 2009) held a press conference in London to update the media on Ryanair’s continuing strong growth in routes, traffic and profitability.  Ryanair also released ongoing correspondence with BBC Panorama, who are ‘investigating’ Ryanair, but refuse to provide any factual evidence to support its claims, or allow Ryanair the right to reply in either a live or an unedited interview.

Ryanair highlighted that Easyjet’s website claims that its punctuality is its “top priority”, yet remarkably Easyjet has refused to publish its weekly on-time flight performance for some 20 weeks.  Ryanair believes this failure is because Easyjet cannot match Ryanair’s punctuality or fares.

 

Ryanair’s punctuality has beaten Easyjet’s every week for over 5 years while Ryanair’s fares continue to beat Easyjet’s on every route and on every flight on which the two airlines compete.  Ryanair called on Easyjet to stop hiding the truth about its inferior punctuality and resume publishing weekly details of its on-time performance, its passenger complaints and its lost bags.

 

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said:

 

“Just like their flights, Easyjet’s punctuality statistics are late again.  In fact not alone are they late, it looks like they have been cancelled, something that happens to far too many Easyjet flights, particularly on routes where they can’t compete with Ryanair’s punctuality or Ryanair’s prices.

 

“Easyjet have recently announced the closure of their East Midlands base and cuts at Luton where Easyjet’s prices can’t compete with Ryanair’s low fares, and Easyjet’s punctuality can’t match Ryanair’s either.

 

“We have also released today copies of our exchange of correspondence with the BBC Panorama programme.  To date Panorama have made two false allegations about Ryanair, the first of which is that we apply hidden charges – when everybody knows that all Ryanair charges are published and must be agreed to by passengers before they are allowed to make a booking.

 

“And secondly that Ryanair reached agreement with Airbus on an aircraft order back in 2001, when the facts and the correspondence patently show we didn’t.  Panorama clearly has no facts to back up its claims and is refusing Ryanair a right of reply by way of live interview or unedited pre-recorded interview.”