Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Ryanair apologise for 'technical difficulties' with 'sarcasm detector' after staff duped by comedian

Comedian tweeted the Irish airliner complaining that a woman was being 'charged more' for her 'emotional baggage'

Rose Troup Buchanan
Friday 02 January 2015 16:56 GMT
Comments
Ryanair have never been very successful on social media
Ryanair have never been very successful on social media (PA)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Ryanair apologised for "technical difficulties" with their "sarcasm detector" after staff failed to get an Irish comedian's tweet complaining the airline was forcing a woman to pay extra for her “emotional baggage”.

Ryan Hand tweeted at the airline: “What a disgrace, there’s a woman crying at the @Ryanair check in desk who’s been made to pay more for emotional baggage”.

Within two minutes of him posting the tweet, Mr Hand received the following reply from Ryanair staff: “Hi Ryan, which airport is this happening at? IK” on 29 December.

The joke was then compounded by Mr Hand, 27, who retweeted their response and asked his followers to do the same. It has now been retweeted over a 1,000 times and ‘favourited’ over 700 times.

The airline responded to The Independent, writing in a statement: “As the fastest responding airline on Twitter in Europe, we pride ourselves on the speed of our customer service.”

They added: “We apologise for temporary technical difficulties with our sarcasm detector today.”

Ryanair has never been particularly successful on the social media network. In 2013 CEO Michael O’Leary endured a car crash Twitter Q&A which saw users attack him for his airline’s bad customer service among other things.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in