Joe Duffy has apologised for calling Michael O’Leary a liar on his radio show earlier this week.
The Ryanair chief executive was appearing on Liveline, a phone-in show, to defend a seating policy that has been under attack for allegedly splitting up passengers travelling together.
After speaking to a number of callers who complained that the airline required passengers to pay a €2 fee to choose seats together, Mr O’Leary rang in to address the concerns.
“You promise this time that you’re on Liveline you won’t tell lies, Michael?” Duffy said, referring to a previous appearance on the programme.
“You came on this programme four or five years ago about a group of passengers from Luton who had missed their flight and were saying it wasn’t announced and hadn’t been advertised on the board,” Mr Duffy said. “You came up and said it was absolutely and completely untrue and accused them of being liars. We then got information from Luton airport themselves which completely disproved everything you said,” he added.
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Mr O’Leary denied the accusation and said the information was not correct. Duffy then interjected: “So everyone else was lying?”
Speaking on the programme yesterday, Mr Duffy referenced the Luton flight row and apologised for the words he used when addressing Mr O’Leary.
“I accused Michael O’Leary of having told lies,” he said. “I am happy to say that Michael O’Leary did not tell lies, is not a liar, and that particular word should not have been used. I apologise to him for that,” he added.
According to Ryanair, the policy of charging €2 to book seats together is not new, but rather has become more apparent due to the increase in passengers choosing to reserve seats. It claimed that this has led to passengers who opt for free seats being split up.
Earlier in the day, Mr O’Leary said on another radio programme that people should “stop whingeing” about the charge. “If you want to sit beside somebody, you buy a reserved seat, you can do that from €2 and frankly if you’re not happy to pay the €2 to sit beside somebody else, stop complaining,” he said.
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“If you have chosen a random seat, you’re getting a random seat, so stop whingeing,” he added.
Mr O’Leary also claimed that the company has reduced their average fares by 8 per cent this year.