Ryanair doesn't believe in online PR, but it's working well for other airlines.

Ryanair decided to take a innovative approach to online PR this week when blogger Jason Roe discovered a glitch in their booking system. The glitch, caused the booking page to show 0.00 for a flight, instead of the real price. Roe, being a web developer, thought this was a blog worthy piece, and reported it to his readers.

Apparently, this blog post really riled someone at Ryanair because not long after, they rode in, guns blazing, screaming “jason! you’re an idiot and a liar!! fact is!” along with various other personal attacks towards Roe.

The situation escalated with trade press Travolution and Econsultancy picking up on the story. Travolution managed to get a statement from Stephen McNamara at Ryanair who claimed:

“Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. “It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again. “Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel”.

Suddenly, the mainstream news had the perfect hook and coverage appeared in The Times and Telegraph.

While Ryanair have decided that the blogosphere is not for them and that it is not in their interest to engage with bloggers and customers online, other airlines have embraced blogging and proven that there is significant value spending time on social media engagement while still managing to keep the cost of flights down.

American domestic budget carrier Southwest Airlines are well known for their widespread use of social media. They have a online social hub called Nuts about Southwest that acts as a platform for all their social engagement channels such as blogging, flickr, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. And while they are taking on a plethora of social media channels, they appear to be using them extremely successfully.

They’re engaging their 13,272 Twitter followers by providing customer support and requesting customer feedback while promoting special offers. Their blog has helped them gain valuable customer feedback on proposed service changes and their Facebook fan page contains over 63,000 brand advocates that are engaged in suggesting new routes and sharing photos of their travels with Southwest.

It’s not just Southwest that are at it. British Airways are busy on Twitter providing flight status updates and tipping off readers about special offers.

While Ryanair believe engaging in social media and providing cheap flights are mutually exclusive, there is evidence from other carriers to suggest otherwise and who can put a price on good customer service and brand appreciation.