Hoax Alert: Ryanair Will NOT Transport Refugees Without Papers

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

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Earlier today a press release started circulating and several news outlets reported that low-cost airline Ryanair had decided to flout EU visa rules by allowing asylum seekers without visa to board flights to Belgium, Italy, France, Spain, Denmark and Germany.

Ryanair has denied this story, and it has since been retracted by several outlets, including DPA International, a German press agency:

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We managed to find a copy of the original story posted by DPA International by using Google's cache:

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The 'Kenny Jacobs' mentioned in the story does indeed work for Ryanair according to his LinkedIn profile. But reporters contacted Ryanair and the entire story was denied categorically:

It appears the hoax was part of a campaign by an organisation calling itself RyanFair that has set up a fake website using Ryanair's look and feel to promote the cause of refugees.

Lead Stories' Trendolizerâ„¢ constantly scours social networks worldwide for trending news about Ryanair, true or not. Scroll down to see the latest.


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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