Ryanair Vows to Improve Hospitality DUBLIN - Ryanair, the budget airline based in Dublin, promised on Friday to transform its "abrupt culture" in a bid to win customers, acknowledging for the first time that a reputation for treating its passengers badly might have become a problem. The Irish airline said it would overhaul the way it communicates and be more lenient about fines for luggage sizes. "We should try to eliminate things that unnecessarily" irritate people, Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, said at the company's annual meeting after several shareholders complained about the impact of customer service on sales. He said the airline would overhaul its Web site, set up a new team to respond to e-mail and stop fining customers whose carry-on baggage exceeded maximum sizes by a few millimeters. "A lot of those customer-services elements don't cost a lot of money," Mr. O'Leary said. It's something we are committed to addressing over the coming year. While Ryanair's focus on cost-cutting has helped it to grow - it flew more scheduled international passengers last year than any other airline - shareholders said the company's reputation for poor customer service was limiting its room for growth. "I have seen people crying at boarding gates," said Owen O'Reilly, a shareholder. There is simply something wrong there that needs to be addressed. Mr. O'Leary, who for years has played down such complaints, citing statistics about revenue growth and on-time departures, nodded as other shareholders told anecdotes about being verbally attacked at dinner parties. "I am very happy to take the blame or responsibility if we have a macho or abrupt culture," he said. Some of that may well be my own personal character deformities. Mr. O'Leary said he was personally irritated that some Ryanair employees fined customers when their carry-on baggage was slightly above the maximum size. He said management would be more lenient."If it's a millimeter over size, get on with it," he said. We are not trying to penalize people for the sake of a millimeter.