Michael O'Leary, head of budget airline Ryanair, has revealed a new direction in customer service for the company which will include being nicer to customers.

The announcement comes on the day that news broke of a Dublin surgeon who was charged EU188 to reschedule a flight days after his entire family was killed in a fire in England.

At the company’s Annual General Meeting, shareholders complained that the company’s reputation for poor customer service was limiting the firm."I have seen people crying at boarding gates," said private shareholder Owen O'Reilly. "There is simply something wrong there that needs to be addressed."

Mr O'Leary said: "I am very happy to take the blame or responsibility if we have a macho or abrupt culture. Some of that may well be my own personal character deformities." He added: "We should try to eliminate things that unnecessarily p*ss people off.”

Policies that will be changed in line with the new plan include refraining from fining people whose hand luggage exceeds the maximum allowance by a few millimetres.

He added that the company's culture would have to change in order to win back customer support and to prevent rivals such as easyjet basing entire campaigns around the fact that their customer service was better than Ryanair's.