<P> On 17 June 2014, Ryanair announced a new campaign to re-invent itself as a more family - friendly airline . Speaking at the company's 2014 AGM, chief executive Michael O'Leary said that the airline needed to "stop unnecessarily pissing people off". Ryanair says up to 20% of its 81 million customers are travelling as families and it wants to raise that figure . Kenny Jacobs, Ryanair's chief marketing officer, said: "Families are a big deal for us . It's a group of customers that we want to get closer to". As another step, the company launched LiveChat on their website to improve the quality of service and experience provided by the company . The change in the approach almost immediately had positive effect on the finances of the company . </P> <P> Ryanair was subject to widespread criticism after it announced that it would be cancelling between 40 and 50 flights per day (about 2% of total daily flights) during September and October of 2017 . Flights were cancelled with very little notice, sometimes only hours before departure . People who had already taken outbound flights were left with no flight home . Ryanair said that the cancellations aimed "to improve its system - wide punctuality" which had dropped significantly in the first two weeks of September, which the airline attributed to "ATC capacity delays and strikes, weather disruptions and the impact of increased holiday allocations to pilots and cabin crew". In subsequent statements, Ryanair acknowledged that it had "messed up" holiday schedules for pilots, including a change to the calendar year for how vacations were calculated . </P> <P> Ryanair's advertising and the antics of Michael O'Leary, such as causing deliberate court controversy to generate free publicity for the airline, have led to a number of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and occasionally court action being taken against the airline . </P> <P> An example of this was the live BBC News interview on 27 February 2009 when Michael O'Leary, observing that it was "a quiet news day", commented that Ryanair was considering charging passengers £ 1 to use the toilet on their flights . The story subsequently made headlines in the media for several days and drew attention to Ryanair's announcement that it was removing check - in desks from airports and replacing them with online check - in . Eight days later O'Leary eventually admitted that it was a publicity stunt saying "It is not likely to happen, but it makes for interesting and very cheap PR". The concept of Ryanair charging for even this most essential of customer services was foreseen by the spoof news website "The Mardale Times" some five months previously, in their article "Ryanair announce new' Pay - Per - Poo' service". </P>

Outside great britain hahn is the biggest hub for the discount airline ryanair