Ryanair is to take legal action following a Channel 4 documentary in which its own pilots questioned its safety standards.
In a statement issued as soon as the Dispatches programme was aired on Monday evening, the airline said the programme had impugned its 29-year safety record based on “nothing more than anonymous hearsay”.
A spokesman later confirmed to BBT that the airline would be taking action against Channel 4. The programme alleged that the carrier puts pressure on pilots to carry the minimum fuel needed for a diversion. It detailed how on one occasion last year, three flights diverted from Madrid to Valencia had declared a fuel emergency before landing safely.
Dispatches carried an interview with a Spanish air traffic control official who claimed the policy could lead to a disaster if a large number of Ryanair aircraft were forced to divert because of weather or other delays.
The programme showed how the airline published a league table of captains based on their average fuel burn and sent warning letters to those who were in the bottom 20 per cent, but the airline said more than 50 per cent of its pilots take extra fuel “over and above the already planned Ryanair extra fuel on a daily basis”.
Ryanair said the claims were based upon replies from less than one third of more than 3,000 of its serving pilots and claimed they were “a crude attempt to use baseless safety ‘concerns’ as a cover for its failed trade union agenda”.
Meanwhile, the airline also attracted criticism for refusing to refund the fare of a woman who died of cancer before she was able to take a holiday. Beryl Parsons from Norwich had been due to fly to Fuerteventura in October, but died in June. Ryanair refused to refund her family because its bereavement policy is only to reimburse for deaths within 28 days of intended travel.