THE PRICE IS WRONG - SEEING
RED OVER THE TABLOID PRESS

WORLD'S LEAST CARING AIRLINE IS
ALL ABOUT PROFIT, PROFIT, PROFIT

I’ve only once flown Ryanair and had no real complaints. But when, loo and behold, company boss Michael O’Leary began spouting about charging passengers for using his aircraft toilets in-flight, that was bladder-well not on.

As far as I was concerned, the Irish cheapo fly-boys were just cheapskate penny pinchers, at the same time screaming hypocritically that they are the cheapest and best airline around.

The problem is that O’Leary has got himself stuck uncomfortably between two stools (more Donna toilet humour). He’ll do anything for publicity – but in the process tends to ostracise a huge number of people, including passengers and staff.

Some travellers will no doubt be happy to save a few more quid by utilising the ‘‘standing seats’’ he plans to introduce in order to shoe-horn as many passengers as possible into short-haul flights.

Not me – I get backache after ten minutes shopping, so what price surviving a trip from Manchester to Murcia or Alicante on my feet?

Last summer O’Leary riled his own pilots with his ridiculous questioning of whether commercial airliners actually need two pilots on the flight deck.

“Really, you only need one pilot,’’ he ranted. ‘‘Let’s take out the second pilot. Let the bloody computer fly it.”

O’Leary’s logic is that flight attendants could do the job of the co-pilot, who he claimed was only there ‘‘to make sure the first fella doesn’t fall asleep and knock over one of the computer controls.”

He wants one of the cabin crew on all Ryanair flights taught to land a plane, with the pilot ringing the bell in an emergency and calling her in to take over. Following those comments, O’Leary quickly found himself on the receiving end from his own pilots, with Marseille-based Captain Morgan Fischer proposing that Ryanair ‘‘replace the chief executive with a probationary cabin-crew member currently earning about 13,200 euros net a year. “Ryanair would benefit by saving millions of euros in salary, benefits and stock options,” quipped Fischer

saw the funny side and joined in the banter, as did Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara, who said: “Michael thinks that cabin crew would make a far more attractive CEO than him so we are going to seriously look at the suggestion. “After all, if we can train cabin crew to land the plane, it should be no problem training them to do Michael’s job as well.”

They say that any publicity is good publicity – and that certainly seems to be Ryanair’s policy. But if they don’t soften their attitude towards their customers, I reckon they will pay heavily for it in due course.

A Cork-based friend of mine often travels from Cork to the UK with Ryanair because has no other option. And he reckons their attitude is not one of gratitude for his business but that THEY are doing HIM a favour in providing a service.

Another friend’s recent experience suggests that Ryanair should consider adopting the expression ‘The Customer is Always Wrong’ as their official slogan. My pal Andres Ballesteros, whose English is adequate but not perfect, paid on line for a return ticket from Liverpool to Alicante for his UK-based son – only to realise almost immediately that he had booked the flights back to front.

It was clearly a genuine mistake but Andres accepted he’d have to fork out 20 or 30 euros to have the dates reversed. But when he phoned Ryanair’s call centre, a dismissive female operator told him haughtily: ‘‘It’s your mistake. You’ll just have to book and pay again’’.

Poor Andres was forced to rebook both flights, more than doubling the cost and adding a tasty bonus to O’Leary’s greed machine. World’s Most Popular Airline? World’s Least Caring Airline more likely.

As for all those O’Leary cost-cutting ideas, I’m not sure how serious he is – and whether any of them will actually be introduced rather than merely touted for publicity reasons. But don’t you find Ryanair’s endless purse-squeezing in order to increase profits a little worrying?

We have to believe that safety is as much a priority with O’Leary as it is with every other airline – and that he is not cutting corners in crucial areas like aircraft servicing.

However, I bet his constant stream of penny-pinching ideas has sewn just a tiny seed of doubt in the minds of some people. Me for one.

WAS IT ALL STAGE-MANAGED? GRUMPY OLD

GRAN'S  VERDICT ON THUMPY OLD GRAN

I should be gasping with envy after gritty granny Ann Timson’s incredible bravery in seeing off six would-be jewel thieves with her mighty handbag.

But while the 71-year-old Northampton pensioner’s amazing bravery grabbed headlines in the UK, Spain and indeed all around the world, I'm afraid Grumpy Old Gran's jury is still out on Thumpy Old Gran.

It’s not that I would have dared to lay into those yobs in the way Ann did. Not likely. I might be a few years younger than her but a heart condition, Parkinson's Disease and an arthritic back are hardly suitable weapons for nailing delinquents.

It’s just that something about the all-too-clear video of the action doesn’t run true. It is simply too coincidental that a camera should capture virtually every moment from the perfect vantage point.

 We saw it all - from the thugs sledging at the jewellers’ window and the animated manager leaping frenetically about in the entrance of the shop as the blinds came down, to Ann entering stage right, standing out from everyone else in her bright red coat, jogging across the road and unhesitatingly performing a solo bag bash on the would-be robbers.

Even the passers-by looked more like film extras as they stood, virtually motionless, watching the one-woman windmill whirl reduce the gold-digging gang to a fleeing flock of frightened fools.

The action is all so clinical. Like a scene from a movie. Had it been April 1^st I would have instantly believed it was a bizarre attempt to fool the public. The subsequent interviews with the shop manager and his staff also seemed too smooth – their eloquence smacking of professional actors articulating a prepared script rather than shocked employees.

Now I am not saying any of it WAS an act. In fact, reports that most of the villains of the piece are facing criminal charges is surely conclusive evidence that Ann’s intervention was all a genuine instance of true heroism in the face of real danger.

By all accounts the former market trader has spent ten years challenging violent criminals on the estate where she lives.

According to the Daily Mail, her neighbourhood, once notorious for its lawlessness, used to be rife with drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes. But it is claimed that Ann helped turn the Spring Boroughs estate in Northampton from a ‘violent crack den into a thriving community’.

So why on earth am I so reluctant to concede that this was a very special event until a court actually convicts the gang of the offences we all saw?

Even then, no one will convince me this was not a staged reconstruction of what actually happened, rather than the real thing.

I mean, if it wasn't a set-up, why was the camera there in the first place? It didn't exactly look like a street full of action, did it?

If what we saw was the action as it truly happened, Ann is a fantastic lady - reconstruction or not.

There is no doubt she has struck a mighty blow for the credibility of a section of society that is largely invisible to Britain’s movers and shakers.

I just hope we are not going to see her reduced from a thoroughbred grey with a special pedigree to an also-Gran who was not really at the race.