In the PR business it is said that no publicity is bad publicity. RyanAir appear to subscribe to this view anyway. Recently the company has been sued by French President and his wife/girlfriend for using their pictures without permission. They ran the ad only once but have gained massively from the media frenzy that surrounded the controversial advertisement. And what did it cost them to lose that case - just 60,000 Euros - probably less than they spent on the ad campaign itself. But it doesn't stop there, they were also heavily criticized for running an ad in the UK featuring a scantily clad schoolgirl. again, the ad has since been removed but well done Ryanair - you scored big with lots of media coverage of this offensive advertisement. Congratulate your PR firm on a job well done and dream up the next offensive ad that will gain you some publicity.

Now - let's talk about Ryanair a bit shall we? Have you ever flown with this outfit? I'm not going to say that they are a bad airline in the sense that they generally get you where you are going in reasonable time but.....

Ryanair has come in for criticism from the EU as well for misleading pricing in advertising and misleading pricing on their website. Yet again, this affair resulted in lots of publicity for the airline.

Ryanair promotes cheap travel. It will tell you that a seat is say $1 in a promotion. You go to the website and sure enough - that's the price alright...until you start factoring in all the add ons. Let me see, priority boarding (everyone buys it so you have to if you don't want to be sitting on the wing), next luggage (oh yes, did they tell you you pay through the nose to have them transport your baggage with you?), trip insurance (at least you can opt out of this one) and then, when you are through they suddenly add taxes and all those other airline fees and you find out that your $1 flight is actually costing you $250!

You show up and board your Ryanair flight. I like to sleep on planes but its not possible on a Ryanair flight because now they have your undivided attention for several hours and they will extract more cash from you. First, it's overpriced food and drinks, then it's their calendar sale, then it's duty free, then it's cheap rail tickets if you buy from them and finally (sigh), they want you to buy their lottery tickets to win a free Ryanair flight (wait - did they say FREE again?).

I sat with someone who won that free flight recently. They were a bit disappointed to find out FREE meant to a certain value and must be used in the next 14-days!

Yep - Ryanair - wonderful company. And by writing this, I just gave them some more publicity....