Ryanair: The Simon Cowell of transportation

Ryanair has agreed to change its advertising strategy after been referred to the Office of Fair Trading. (The Register) To mark this historic day, here are some of Ryanair's greatest hits in advertising and public relations:

Apr 2009: Ryanair claims to be considering a surcharge for overweight people on its flights. (Ryanair)
Feb 2009: Ryanair does away with check-in desks in airports and allegedly considers charging customers to use the toilet on its planes, although many people suspect the latter is a PR stunt by the company. (BBC; The Register)
Feb 2009: Ryanair staff post abusive comments on a blog after the blogger claims to have found a bug in their website. A Ryanair staffer claims "you're an idiot and a liar!!" (The Register; Jason Roe)
Dec 2008: The airline is found to flout regulations by automatically adding insurance and checked-in baggage to transactions on its website, both of which carry extra costs. (The Register)
Sep 2008: The Irish Times reports on a dispute where Ryanair is allegedly instructing pilots to carry less fuel for use in emergencies. Ryanair wholly deny the allegations. (Irish Times)
Oct 2008: Ryanair is voted the world's least favourite airline for the third year running in a survey by TripAdvisor. (Travelmole)
Aug 2008: Ryanair announces it will cease to honour tickets booked through aggregators, such as price comparison sites. (The Register)
Jul 2008: Newspapers report that Ryanair was unable or unwilling to help a disabled passenger onto a plane, forcing her husband to carry her onboard. (Sun; Daily Mail)
Apr 2008: The ASA upholds a complaint over a misleading promotion, finding Ryanair offered insufficient evidence to prove the cheap flights advertised were available. (ASA)
Feb 2008: A French court awards 60,001 Euros damages to Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy after Ryanair used images of them in an ad without their permission. (The Register)
Jan 2008: Ryanair is censured by Advertising Standards Authority for a sexually suggestive press ad showing a woman in a schoolgirl costume. The ASA said the ad "appeared to link teenage girls with sexually provocative behaviour and was irresponsible and likely to cause serious or widespread offence." Ryanair refused to withdraw this ad and said, "This isn't advertising regulation, it is simply censorship. This bunch of unelected self-appointed dimwits are clearly incapable of fairly and impartially ruling on advertising." (BBC; ASA)
Jan 2008: Further ASA criticism over the wording of ads, as Ryanair fails to insert the word "from" before the figure "£10". (ASA)
Oct 2007: The ASA ban a Ryanair advert which falsely accuses lastminute.com of "robbing" and overcharging customers. (The Register; ASA)
Oct 2007: Ryanair voted least favourite airline again (Glasgow Evening Times)
Aug 2007: While Ryanair claims to be faster and cheaper than Eurostar from London to Paris, the ASA differs. Complaint against Ryanair upheld. (ASA)
July 2007: A Ryanair campaign encouraging people to write to the UK government over climate change policy is criticised by the ASA. (ASA)
May 2007: Complaints upheld over ad about promotional flights from Stansted. (ASA)
Apr 2007: The London Evening Standard reports that a "boy of 14 in a plaster cast from his ankle to his thigh was forced to stand for nearly two hours on a Ryanair jet." Ryanair subsequently apologised. (Evening Standard)
Apr 2007: Ryanair named in an Early Day Motion by British parliamentarians for "refus[ing] to provide an email address for the purposes of making complaints and direct[ing] its customers to use either a telephone number which costs 10 pence per minute or to post or fax complaints to its head office in Dublin". They call upon "online-based companies such as Ryanair to improve the ability of their customers to communicate with the company after sales by at least publishing an email address for this purpose so that redress for poor service is made less complicated and expensive", and publish a phone number for the airline. (UK Parliament)
Feb 2007: The Times reports that Ryanair has been criticised by air accident investigators for pilots flying too low over houses and other safety concerns. Pilots blame pressure to turn around planes in only 25 minutes; Ryanair declined to comment. Incidents include (1) a plane landing in Cork that "exceeded the normal operating limit for tilting the Boeing 737's wings" and set off its ground proximity alarm twice, flying as low as 425 ft above houses, (2) a near-accident in Knock, Ireland, that was not reported for almost 2 weeks and some evidence deleted in the interim, and (3) a co-pilot having to take control of a flight approaching Rome when the captain "suffered a breakdown". (Times)
Dec 2006: Ryanair fails to take consumer rights website ryanaircampaign.org offline for trademark infringement when the World Intellectual Property Organisation Arbitration and Mediation Center rules against the airline. (The Register)
Nov 2006: Ryanair advertisements that promise free flights but fail to quantify taxes and airport fees are criticised. (ASA)
Oct 2006: Ryanair cuts baggage allowances by a quarter while passengers are on holiday: "a family of four could end up paying £110 just to bring back the same amount of luggage they took." (This Is Money)
Oct 2006: Ryanair is voted the world's least favourite airline in a survey by TripAdvisor. (Guardian)
Aug 2006: Another "misleading" comparison in press ads. (ASA)
May 2006: UK statutory body the Disability Rights Commission criticises Ryanair for imposing a 33 p levy on each ticket to pay for transporting disabled people; the DRC feel 0.02 p would be a fairer price. Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary is quoted as saying "The DRC wouldn't f***ing know how much it costs if it jumped up and bit them". (Daily Telegraph)
May 2006: Complaint upheld for imposing too many conditions on cheap flights that weren't mentioned in ad. (ASA)
Feb 2006: The Irish Independent reports that the Irish Aviation Authority has "engaged" with Ryanair after "getting dozens of letters from pilots worried about their professional status with the low-cost airline. The pilots warned that they may no longer be able to comply with the conditions of their licences because they may, in effect, be compelled to fly while it might not always be safe to do so." Ryanair claim they respect the authority of pilots but refuse to comment on a pilot allegedly demoted for refusing to fly due to fatigue. (Irish Independent)
Feb 2006: A documentary for Channel 4's Dispatches series claims to expose "inadequate safety and security checks, dirty planes, exhausted cabin crew and pilots complaining about the number of hours they have to fly". (Channel 4)
May 2005: Complaint upheld when Ryanair promise cheap summer flights, but none are available after May 26th. (ASA)
Dec 2004: Both Ryanair and Stansted found to have jointly discriminated against a disabled passenger by charging £18 for a wheelchair rental. This overturns an earlier ruling that found Ryanair solely responsible. (Out-Law)
Dec 2004: Complaint upheld for claiming Girona airport serves Barcelona; Girona is 112 km (70 miles) away. (ASA)
Sep 2004: The International Transport Workers' Federation criticise Ryanair for staff's long working hours, hiring eastern European crew on lower wages, and intimidating workers who try to join unions. (ITWF)

You could draw up similar lists for other airlines, such as BA and Virgin's price fixing (BBC), and EasyJet's reluctance to offer refunds (Guardian) and automatically adding optional surcharges to flights (The Register), but Ryanair's is almost certainly the longest.