Ryanair passenger responds after airline's brutal dig at him over legroom tweet

02 July 2023 , 10:10

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Ryanair made a cheeky mock-up of Noah Ellis (Image: Noah Ellis / MEN Media)

A tourist who was mocked by Ryanair after tweeting the firm to suggest it offered more legroom on its planes has spoken out about the banter.

The budget airline had cut and paste an image of Noah Ellis' head onto a picture of a child in a car booster seat in its brutal reply on Twitter.

The tweet has so far been viewed more than 1.5 million times and has had more than 9,000 likes and retweets.

Noah had shared the suggestion after boarding a flight to Krakow, Poland, with a bunch of mates last week.

Speaking today, amid the lads' trip, the university student, who is 6ft 6in tall, told Manchester Evening News: "I could barely move my legs. It wasn't a proper complaint, it was just a bit of a joke. and to see if we could get them to say something.

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"I know the reputation they've got on Twitter and have seen their responses to stuff about window seats and stuff like that before.

"But I wasn't expecting them to reply if I'm honest. We were sat having dinner when I got a notification saying they'd quote-tweeted me.

"And I thought it was really funny. We've been laughing about it since. My mates are loving it, I've definitely had no sympathy from them.

Noah took a photo of the legroom he had on the outbound journey (Noah Ellis / MEN Media)

"They know how much I bang on about legroom so they just think its funny that's now been recognised."

The 20-year-old man, who studies geography at University of Nottingham, occasionally pays for extra legroom in advance but chose not to in this instance as the flights were expensive originally.

But he fell foul to Ryanair's rather savage use of social media.

Ryanair made a cheeky mock-up of Noah Ellis (Noah Ellis / MEN Media)

The airline has developed a reputation for its replies to customers' social media complaints, particularly regarding window seats and legroom, given customers can pay to select their own seats and pay for extra legroom.

Noah, who is from Altrincham, Greater Manchester, said his own complaint was light-hearted and, after arriving in Poland, he already made the decision to book extra legroom for his return flight.

When another tourist, Steve Merry, whinged about legroom in March, he was also mocked by the no-nonsense Irish airline's social media team.

Chris Slater