A RYANAIR boss has been branded a “w*****” after complaining about his flight getting delayed.
Kenny Jacobs, the airline’s chief marketing officer, took to social media to complain about his flight from Dublin being delayed for over two hours this morning (Tues).
Mr Jacobs insisted more needed to be done by the EU to deal with air traffic control staff shortages.
But the post immediately prompted a massive backlash from disgruntled Ryanair customers, generating comments such as “read the room”, “oh the irony”, and “tough s***.”
Mr Jacobs posted on LinkedIn at 7.15am: “Sitting on runway in Dublin on flight that should have left at 0650 but will leave after 0830 because of Air Traffic Control staff shortages in Europe.
“The worst summer ever for delays and cancellations across all airlines and more needs to be done by EU.
“It’s bad for tourism, business travel and will mess up the hard earned holidays of many families.”
Many disgruntled passengers took to Twitter to troll Mr Jacobs for his complaint about the delays caused by “staff shortages”.
Ryanair tweeted Mr Jacob’s post, prompting dozens of furious comments.
IBO wrote: “I have sat on Ryanair flights countless times and experienced delays with no idea of projected departure times. No water (unless I paid €2 for it) and a general feeling of helplessness. Tough s***, now you know how it feels.”
Aoife Crowley wrote: “Nice one Ryanair. You retweet your CMO’s “caring” tweet about delays to holiday goers but left the tweets about being stuck at Gatwick for 11 hrs yesterday unanswered. And you did not have a representative available for customers.”
Carol Butler: “Really, Kenny? Read the room. Imagine being delayed by nine hours on the FR909 Cork to London flight yesterday without any update or explanation from ground staff or Ryanair.”
Neil Wilson? said: “Don’t think Ryanair are in any position to moan about getting shafted. Let’s be honest. All too often you leave the general public high and dry without one f*** given.”
Steve Davies added: “At least you are still flying you f***. And haven’t been cancelled after a four hour delay, then been told to rebook everything ourselves and claim it all back. Currently £650- Cheers Ryanair (Oh and ours was because of staff shortages).
Kenny Fagan replied:? “When I made a complaint about a flight from Dublin to Stansted two months ago you never bothered to reply. Delayed for seven hours and given no information. But when some Ryanair hot shot does it, you publish that. W*****s.”
Others made fun of the fact that Mr Jacobs said he was “sitting on a runway”.
Piggy? wrote: “An airline’s Chief Marketing Officer with absolutely no concept of what a runway is. Do some basic aviation research Mr Jacobs. Dear, oh dear.
Gary Chittick commented: “Definitely not sitting ‘on runway’.”
The Irish carrier was plunged into controversy last September when it cancelled around 700,000 flight bookings after “messing up” its pilots’ holiday rostering.
Mr Jacobs described the cancelled flights as “not that big of a deal” because it represented 0.5% of the carrier’s annual flights.
A spokeswoman said: “German, UK and French ATC staff shortages have caused delays to 85 (20%) of our 430 first wave of flight departures this morning.
“These delays are unjustified and we again call on the EU Commission to take action to prevent Europe’s commuters from experiencing the worst ever summer for disruption, delays and cancellations, due to ATC staff shortages and ATC strikes.
“We sincerely regret these delays and are doing our utmost to limit their impact on flights throughout the rest of today. Customers on impacted flights have been notified by SMS text and email.”
It is thought that Mr Jacobs was on the 6.50am Ryanair flight from Dublin airport to Rome. Records show that this flight was delayed by around an hour and forty minutes departing at 8.14am.
Ryanair on June 12 confirmed that Mr Jacobs was on their Dublin-Rome Ciampino flight first thing this morning.
