It would now appear that the Office of Fair Trading has come out and made their feelings about Ryanair’s payment policies known. Apparently the Office of Fair Trading feels that Ryanair is being childish and playing funny games with its passengers.

John Fingleton, the Office of Fair Trading chief executive, went on to attack Ryanair, saying that the budget carrier is attacking its passengers with stealth charges buy adding on charges for the use of paying by credit card for all but one card type.

He went on to say that the airline has found a legal loophole to justify charging this extra fee. Apparently airlines have to note all fees that cannot be avoided in ads. Thus, Ryanair says that charging a fee for the use of credit cards without advertising there is a fee is possible, because passengers can avoided it by using a Prepaid Mastercard. This is the only card type that does not get charged the extra fee.

However, Ryanair just pushed off John Fingleton’s claims and said that the payment policy model allows passengers to avoid these costs if they wish. They also did not see why John Fingleton went on to just attack them. Ryanair pointed out that these credit card charges are used by other airlines all around the world.

The head of communications for Ryanair, Stephen McNamara, said that the Office of Fair Trading has to understand that passengers prefer Ryanair’s business model to other airlines. This is because they have the chance to avoid the costs that other strike-threatened airlines, such as British Airways, offer no way around.