Watch out, Irish Ferries, our loyalty is fleeting

WHAT’S that odd musical tone you’re hearing on your Ryanair flight? As you sit there, knees under your chin, scratch card in hand, hand-baggage beneath your feet because you’re one of the plebs who doesn’t get to use an overhead bin, what’s that strange tinny little sound ringing around the cabin?

No, it’s not the famous trumpets, announcing ‘Yet another on-time Ryanair flight’ (it’s easy to beat the clock, mind you, when you estimate a threehour flying time from Dublin to Liverpool …)

Instead, it sounds more like a stringed instrument, maybe even a whole orchestra of them … Yes, frequent fliers, that’s the sound of the world’s tiniest violins playing a lament for the plight of Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs this week.

Like most passengers who’ve been delayed, rerouted or bumped off a flight, Ryanair’s chief marketing officer took to Twitter to rally public sympathy for his cause. Mr Jacobs was delayed for one hour and 40 minutes – ONE HOUR AND 40 MINUTES – on the tarmac in Dublin Airport, this week, after his flight was disrupted by French air traffic control strikes.

His flight should have left at 6.50am, he tweeted, but was now unlikely to leave until after 8.30am because of the strikes.

Imagine, a delay of less than two hours? Monty Python usually has a line for most absurd situations and many seasoned Ryanair passengers, I’m guessing, won’t have any trouble finding just the right fit for this one: ‘A two-hour delay? LUXURY!’

A mere two-hour delay would have been a blessing, last week, to those Ryanair passengers left in a Viennese airport in the dead of night after their flight to Budapest was rerouted.

If only they’d been told, as they watched the flight crew depart for their hotels, that transfer coaches would be along in a couple of hours, they’d have danced a jig. But the luxury of a twohour delay was not to be: Instead, they had to fork out for taxis from their own pockets (one group spent €600 on a minibus) and submit their ‘reasonable’ expenses to the company for reimbursement.

And, when they put down their tiny violins to tweet in response, other passengers shared their recent experiences with Mr Jacobs. ‘Read the room, Kenny,’ said one, ‘delayed by NINE hours on the Cork to London flight yesterday with no explanation.’

‘Welcome to the dark side,’ said another. ‘Now you know what it feels like to be ignored when flights are delayed and diverted… it must be a bit like being one of your customers.’

Yet another attacked Ryanair for sharing Mr Jacobs’ ‘caring’ tweet while customers’ tweets about ‘being stuck for 11 hours in Gatwick yesterday’ were left unanswered. Most folk were especially annoyed about Mr Jacobs’ suggestion that he wasn’t just complaining about the inconvenience to himself, by the air traffic strikes, but also about the fact that the EU’s inaction would ‘mess up the hard-earned holidays of many families’.

The French air controllers have, indeed, wreaked unchecked havoc on Europe-wide travel plans, and somebody with a bit of clout needs to speak up. But hearing a Ryanair executive emoting about hard-pressed families, and blaming the EU and French air traffic control for delays is a bit like an Irish Ferries chief sounding off about Stena Line’s timekeeping.

Delays happen – everybody gets that. Circumstances beyond a flight or ferry operator’s control can disrupt the schedules, and every passenger and holidaymaker knows how it works.

We know that ferries and airlines are powerless to prevent ash clouds or air traffic control crises, sudden storms or supply issues. But we would prefer, when chaos hits, that these operators treated us like adult humans and not farmed mushrooms.

SNAFUS may be out of their hands, but communications are not: keeping folk in the dark, and feeding them manure, is not a recipe for happy and loyal customers.

This week, Irish Ferries appeared to import the Ryanair customer service manual wholesale, with frustrated holidaymakers making dozens of unanswered calls to its ‘helplines’ after the promised WB Yeats ferry service to France was abruptly cancelled. Now customers are vowing, as they frequently do about Ryanair, that they’ll never darken the doorstep of an Irish Ferries vessel again. These threats never much bother Ryanair, and nobody in Irish Ferries is likely to lose much sleep over disgruntled travellers’ threats – they know if the price is right and the service is convenient then the bookings will follow.

And they’re correct, up to a point. But fair-weather customers are not loyal ones, and they won’t support your company when the storms set in.

They will defect to a slightly cheaper rival if it means saving a few cents because you’ve banked no stock of goodwill with them, and they will dump you at the very first sign of trouble, they’ll leave you stranded and adrift because they know, from bitter experience, that you’d do the very same to them.