Ryanair Have Italians Pretending To Be in Dublin Airport - Why? Covering O'Leary's Ass?

international | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Tuesday February 01, 2005 18:27 by eeekkkk

An accidental hungover sunday news story

Well I decided to call Ryanair to make a complaint about the way they were insulting Che Geuvara by putting berties face on him. I rang their head office in Dublin. It was Sunday just gone. There was a message recorded which I listened to. It gave me a number to call to deal with a human. I'll put the exact numbers here later. I was informed this would cost 1.75 in euro from ROI or 1 pound from the UK to call. The message clearly stated (as I noted a little later) that the number was for an irish office.

I was pissed about the big ad. in the tribune and like a good natter to whoever will listen a lot of the time anyway and am willing to pay for my entertainment so I called.

The woman who answered spoke accented english and informed me there was no-one willing to listen to my complaint and gave me a fax no and said that was the only way to make a complaint.

I asked her where her office was and was there no supervisor that I could complain to. She quietly told me she was in italy. This only rung bells with me when I rang back the head office ans machine to see if I had missed any other callable numbers.

Thats when it clicked with me that it clearly stated the expensive number i was being given to call was in ireland.

I got a butty to call the number again and ask the person who answered where they were. They (lady) told her in an italian accent that they were in an office in Dublin airport. My butty asked - 'well what's the weather like in dublin today?' The Answer - 'I don't know - I can't see - I am in an office'. 'Could you give me the address of your office?' my butty asked. My butty knew we were on to something when the Ryanair lady with the italian accent spelled out the Co. part of Co. Dublin like 'C O Full Stop'. When asked directly if the office was in italy she said directly - 'No' and continued to claim it was in dublin.

So My butty humg up and called again - another callcentre worker with an italian accent claiming to be in Dublin Airport answered.

Same story - saying office - dublin airport - no idea what the weather is like etc etc etc

My Butty asked politely 'Well if you are indeed in an office in Dubbalin Airport could you please, and sorry about this I don't mean to be in any way rude, put me on the phone to an irish person in the office'.

Supervisor comes along. Italian Accent. It takes 15 minutes for my butty (at 1.70 euro per minute I might add) of cajoling and fucking about on the phone to get this supervisor to say that in actual fact the office where all the calls were going was in milan in Italy. She would offer ono explanation of thee whole rigmarole of her staff pertending to be in Dublin while actually being in Italy. She would neither confirm or deny that they had been instructed to lie when asked where they were. I can think of no other reason why nice italian women sitting in milan would claim on the phone to actually be in Dublin Airport other than an order had come down from Michael O'leary for them to lie systematically to the general public. All that happened here was I got through initially to someone who hadn't got the memo.

Michael O'Learys spurious arguments for liberalisation and privatisation at dublin airport on the strength of jobs it would create does not ring so true if it turns out that Ryanair have outsourced their work in English language call centres to milan in italy does it? That must be the explanation for the lies I and my Butty got on Sunday.