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Independent.ie, Ryanair travellers may lose bookings.
If this article is to be believed, the experience that Delta gave me by mistake (Delta Airlines Canceled Three of Our Four Tickets for No Discernable Reason) is about to be visited on 1,000 Ryanair passengers per day — on purpose. (Spotted via Slashdot, Airline Cancels All Flights Booked Through Third Party Systems.)
The airline yesterday said it would annul all bookings made through third party websites. In a move described as “totally unreasonable” by the Consumers' Association, Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary said the new policy would apply to anyone travelling after next Monday.
The hardline stance affects anyone who booked their Ryanair flights through websites like lastminute.com, v-tours, tui and Opodo.
About 1,000 people use these websites to book Ryanair flights every day, which means 20,000 passengers will be affected by the clampdown if bookings are made an average of 20 days in advance.
Ryanair will give refunds to all of the websites involved, Mr O'Leary said, but passing on those refunds to intending passengers would be a matter for the websites.
“We want to cause as much chaos for the [websites] as possible,” he said.
Is the airline about to go bankrupt? Would any lesser reason cause an airline to hurt its customers in this manner?
I would guess that Ryanair argues it can rescind the tickets because, just being e-tickets, they're not real contracts. I wonder how long that legal theory will survive this sort of behavior.
Barack Obama's “Hands” Ad, showing during the Olympics:
Compare this uplifting ad with the cranky one one from the other side.
Kieran Healy, Sociology refutes Economics (again)
[Note: If you are reading this via the news feed, you may wish to click through to see the videos. There are some good ones this week.]
The week started with McCain successfully putting the race card “issue” (subtext: Obama is black!) on the front pages, so that was good for him. On the other hand, the idea that McCain is old and grumpy got more traction too. We then found out the answer to last week's question whether McCain could go any lower and dirtier — Yes, he can! — as we moved to a McCain ad suggesting Obama is the anti-Christ (yes, really). And that was only the weekend.
Then McCain was up — his weird commercials had taken the focus off issues that matter like jobs and the war.
Then facts — and Paris Hilton — bit back.
The McCain campaign released another anti-Obama commercial, but to most viewers this one will seem like the political equivalent of scoring against yourself. Has to be seen to be believed.
But there may be a (very evil) method to the madness: SoonerG at Kos suggests that the point of the latest McCain ads is to depict Obama as the anti-Christ. Don't laugh. The first thing I thought of when I saw the ad was that it was a dog-whistle call-out to evangelicals who would be offended by Obama's suggestion that “a light will shine down upon you” and inspire people to vote for him.
The reason this is evil — really evil — is that the logical and devout thing for true believers to do is to assassinate the anti-Christ. McCain is playing with nuclear weapons here.
I'm amused to hear the McCain camp's deep sense of “grievance” over any suggestion that McCain is running a xenophobic and often race-tinged campaign against Barack Obama. It's amazing how you can be pushing a message that your opponent is in league with foreign terrorists and comparing him to twenty-something white women best known for their 'behind the music' episodes and so many people can get the wrong idea.
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