“MADRID, Dec 11 (Reuters Life!) – A charity calendar sold by Ireland’s low-cost airline Ryanair showing its air hostesses in skimpy bikinis demeans women and breaks the law, a Spanish consumer group said on Tuesday. The Ryanair 2008 calendar called “The Girls of Ryanair” has photos of air hostesses posing in and outside of planes, dressed in bikinis rather than their normal blue suits. April’s hostess is Nicola from London Stansted, who is wearing only bikini bottoms, with her breasts covered by a lifejacket. “Miss July” — Edita from Marseille — reclines backwards over a wheel with a wrench in her hand and grease on her body.
“The company is attacking the dignity of women workers in general and especially of cabin crew members, by presenting stereotypical images of these professionals which they have spent years struggling against”, Spanish consumer group FACUA said in a statement. Ryanair, which is selling the calendar for five 5 pounds ($10) and giving the proceeds to the children’s charity Angels Quest, was not immediately available for comment.
FACUA has complained about the calendar and its promotional material to Spain’s Women’s Institute, which is part of the Labour Ministry, and to the National Consumer Institute.”
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“Ryanair has come bottom of an online Irish shopping survey, despite being named one of the most efficient airlines in Europe by the Association of European Airlines. On Friday, the airline topped the European organisation’s newly released league table, which assessed airlines based on punctuality and the number of bags lost. Despite this good performance in Europe, Ryanair’s website, Ryanair.com, finished in last place in a separate survey of consumer practises at 25 online firms by Irish internet consultancy firm AMAS.”
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Travel websites are among the worst for online customer service, according to new research from Transversal. The travel industry came joint worst along with telecoms, insurance, consumer electronics, grocers and utilities in a survey of 10 sectors. Although travel websites have improved their ability to respond to holidaymakers’ basic questions in the last year, 60% of questions remain unanswered. Travel websites that offer email customer service options took an average of 58 hours to respond, which is only eight hours better than corresponding research carried out in 2006. Transversal monitored 10 leading UK travel companies by phone, web and email as part of its third annual customer service research.
“Despite the enormous growth in the online channel, across all sectors, our research shows that consumers are still suffering from substandard online service”, said Davin Yap, CEO, Transversal.
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