You may have heard of Ruinair an ever expanding low cost Irish airline renowned for its customer service. Well the Irish author Paul Kilfuff had such a memorable taste of this customer service with a ten hour delay on a not so low cost 300 euro flight to Malaga that he hatched a cunning plan to exact his revenge on RuinAir by flying to as many RuinAir destinations as possible for the same total outlay of 300 euros.

The Europe a la Carte blog is one of Paul’s stops on his virtual book tour.

1 On balance would you say that the growth of RuinAir has been a positive or negative thing for travellers?

i would say it is a very positive thing for travellers, since we now have lower fares, more choice of destinations, more choice of departure times and more choice with new airlines springing up all the time to join the new low fares air travel industry. the downsides are on the environment, falling standards of passenger service on many airlines and the loss of jobs as the flag carriers downsize or go bust eg Sabena, Alitalia.

2 Do you agree that all publicity is good publicity as you are giving RuinAir a lot of (I assume) free publicity?

Yes I agree and so does the Ruinair CEO Micheal O’Leary who said that; ‘There is no such thing as bad publicity, as long as it is not safety related.’ I do think there must be some readers who finish my book and then go off to book a flight on Ruinair. It’s well known that bookings on easyJet spike up immediately after the ‘Airline’ programme is shown on ITV, often just minutes after the programme ends on the TV at 8.30 pm!

3 When I started reading the book I laughed so much that I couldn’t read but as I progressed I became slightly tired of the constant haranguing of RuinAir and thought that it was really too much of thesame to sustain a whole book. Did you consider this issue when planning the book?

Thank you for the positve feedback! some people ask me if the anecdotes and quotations are real and i say yes they all are. I dont think there can ever be too much constant haranguing of Ruinair ever, since they are the most miserable airline I have travelled on. also about 1/3rd of the book is about flying on other airlines such as easyJet, Air Belrin, Clickair, Vueling, Myair so i hope this gives some variety. I think also that when i travelled first on Ruinair i was neutral, but after 25 return trips on 2 years I was almost suicidal. I get emails from readers and to date 95% of them agree with my views on the airline and very few say i went over the top in the book. if you travel more on Ruinair, you may share my view!

4 Did you believe that your book would sell well at airports, especially popular to pass the time for delayed RuinAir passengers? Perhaps you could give some complimentary copies for RuinAir to distribute to delayed passengers, good publicity for Ruinair and for your book?

Yes i always thought it would sell very well in airports. the book was the no. 1 non fiction bestseller in ireland for 9 weeks and books sales in Irish airport shops like Hughes & Hughes were a huge factor in this success. i think many people now buy their books in airports, not on the high street or online. I though about a sort of PR stunt with free copies in airports but airports have strict rules on PR work on their sites. i do always carry a copy to give to other passengers if we get chatting about Ruinair the airline. So if you see on my travels, do stop me and ask.

5 Are you concerned about the environmental impact of encouraging passengers “to get even by buying a one cent ticket” i.e taking trips for the sake of it? I think it would be better to add don’t book your hotels, car hire, travel insurance etc through the RuinAir site as I’ve
always found hotels and car hire cheaper using price comparison sites and/or other websites.

i do have some concerns about the environmental impact of flying often but as Micheal O’Leary says: ‘The eco-nutbags blame us for melting the icecaps, war, pestilence and the Sars epidemic when, in reality, the factual information from the EU Environment Agency is that aviation accounts for 2% of greenhouse gas emissions and of CO2 emissions in the EU. If everybody stopped flying for the next 12 months and CO2 levels fell by 2%, it would represent less than the oil and coal-fired stations to be opened by the Chinese in the next 12 months.’ I think you are 100% correct about finding better value other than using the Ruinair web site and I might cover this in the sequel book about travels in Eastern Europe ‘Ruinairski’. I think i tried to avoid ‘Which’ style consumer affairs type topics in the book.

6 Why are you so anti French? I’ve travelled to France many times and found all the French people I encountered to be charming and helpful but then I do attempt to speak some French.

I am sorry that i came across as anti-French. In fact i tried to have a go at most nations in Europe so I am sorry if France came off worse, and this type of behaviour has never done Jeremy Clarkson’s books sales any damage in the past! Its just that I never had a good time in Paris. Aussi, je parle un peu Francais.

7 Have your ever encountered a friendly, smiling, helpful member of cabin crew on a RuinAir flight?

Yes, I have encountered a maximum of one per flight but never all 4 of the cabin crew. It’s an awful job with huge stress so i dont blame them. They must be all saints to work for an airline like that for a salary like that with those hours. If i was them I would go get a job with easyJet.

My comments – Thanks very much for answering my questions, Paul. I have flown with RuinAir on at least eight return flights.. I’ve only had one flight delay from Stansted to Glasgow Prestwick, all the other flights have arrived early. As I generally travel mid week off peak the planes haven’t been to full. I just don’t join in the scrum to get onboard I bring up the rear and take an aisle seat.

I think that Michael O’Leary would probably be willing to distribute some copies of RuinAir onboard, perhaps as prizes for the passengers who manage to push and trample their way onto the plane first and one for the surliest crew member during the flight.

I flew with Easyjet for the first time recently and I did find that the cabin crew more amiable than those I’ve encountered on RuinAir flights.

Have you read the book, does it accurately describe your experience of RuinAir?