Ryanair, Britain’s favourite airline, today (Tue 13th Oct) released 1.1million FREE seats after BBC Panorama screened its ‘hatchet job’ on Ryanair last evening in which it uncovered – nothing, nada, rien, diddly squat. Ryanair criticised Panorama for its refusal of Ryanair’s offer of a live or uncut pre-recorded interview with Michael O’Leary, but this refusal isn’t surprising given that Panorama had no real case or valid points which would stand up to interview.

Last night Panorama made 11 false or misleading claims as follows:

1. Panorama featured check in problems at Stansted one weekend in August with no mention of the fact that on the other 32 weekends since web check-in was introduced Ryanair has seen no problems whatsoever at Stansted or the other 150 airports Ryanair operates from.

2. Panorama quoted a “Which” magazine survey which has no basis in reality whatsoever since “Which” continue to nominate British Airways as Britain’s favourite airline despite the fact that three times more passengers prefer Ryanair.

3. Panorama claimed that Ryanair charges £5 to all passengers for web check-in but omitted that more than half of Ryanair’s passengers avoid this fee by booking Ryanair’s promotional fares (which include free web check-in).

4. Panorama interviewed a ‘website usability expert’, who claimed that ryanair.com was designed to force passengers to buy Ryanair travel insurance. Panorama hid the fact that over 96% of Ryanair passengers decline travel insurance, which clearly confirms that this ‘website usability expert’ was clueless.

5. Panorama produced a ‘Professor of Corporate Reputation’ to suggest that ‘people feel cheated’ by Ryanair – which is clearly false when over 66 million passengers this year will choose to fly Ryanair because they feel cheated by BA’s and Easyjet’s high fares.

6. Panorama claimed that Ryanair’s 25 minute turnaround was a ‘record time’. This is false since Southwest Airlines in the US operates a 15 minute turnaround.

7. A Panorama actor claimed that cabin crew would not get a contract if they didn’t meet their targets at the end of the day or year. Totally false.

8. Panorama claimed that cabin crew pay £2,000 to train and qualify as cabin crew but conveniently omitted that these payments were not paid to Ryanair.

9. Another Panorama actor claimed Ryanair had ‘no respect or dignity for pilots or cabin crew’ – this is a false claim put about by the British Airways pilots’ union. Respect and dignity in Ryanair come in the form of high pay, rapid promotion and job security – unlike at BA where pilots are facing job cuts and pay cuts.

10. Panorama falsely claimed that no food or drinks are provided to cabin crew without pointing out that each pilot and cabin crew member receives a food allowance on every flight to pay for their own food and drinks.

11. Panorama claimed that “O’Leary is a bully” – this is clearly false when the whole world knows that O’Leary is a kind and gentle, caring and thoughtful, sensitive and saintly human being widely beloved by all Ryanair’s 6,500 people and its 66m passengers.

To celebrate the total failure of BBC Panorama’s hatchet job, Ryanair has today released 1.1million free seats - 100,000 for each of the 11 above lies or false claims made by Panorama last night.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said,

“Last night’s programme was more Bananarama than Panorama. The BBC had no case, no facts and no clue. The only benefit it provided to viewers was the 1.1million free seats Ryanair will give away as a result of its false claims.

66 million passengers know that flying Ryanair guarantees the lowest fares, the best punctuality, no check-in queues and the pleasure of joining the Michael O’Leary fan club. Ryanair’s 1.1million free seats, for travel in November and December, are now available on www.ryanair.com and we urge passengers to snap them up.”