Bumpy landing: Talk about a story taking off - within hours of the sorry tale of Aer Lingus's refusal to honour the €5 US-bound business class tickets it sold "due to a technical error", news organisations in Sydney, London and New York and dozens of other places in between had picked up the story.

Not only that, but Aer Lingus also had to endure a lecture on good customer service from Ryanair, of all companies, before eventually buckling under the pressure and giving the affected passengers free tickets.