Ryanair was forced to correct its website this week after it claimed that Sicily's capital has been dominated by the Cosa Nostra for 'many years'.

'Palermo is a forgotten treasure,' said Ryanair in the tourist guide section on its website, 'dominated for many years by the Mafia and poverty, the city has reclaimed a place among European cultural cities.'

The description sparked outrage from Sicilian regional tourism alderman Cleo Li Catzi and Fabio Giambrone, president of the Gesap company managing Palermo's Falcone-Borsellino airport.

Officials in Palermo, Sicily have reacted angrily after Ryanair described the city as being run by the Mafia for many years

If you look closely in the circle, you will spot the word 'mafia', which has caused outrage in Italy

Users on Twitter reacted to Ryanair's description of Palermo by describing it as an #epicfail

Ryanair marketing manager Giuseppe Belladone said: 'We are removing the content in question, this is content supplied to us by a third party and this detail escaped an internal check.'

The Sicilian Mafia The Sicilian Mafia, also known as Cosa Nostra ('Our Thing'), is a criminal syndicate in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose core activities are protection racketeering and the arbitration of disputes in the black market. Each group, known as a 'family', 'clan', or 'cosca', claims sovereignty over a territory, usually a town or village or a neighbourhood (borgata) of a larger city, in which it operates its rackets. Its members call themselves 'men of honour', although the public often refers to them as 'mafiosi'. Police crackdowns in recent years have sought to limit the power of the group. Many key leaders have been arrested and jailed. Advertisement

'On behalf of Ryanair I want to apologise for what happened.

'The statements do not reflect the content in question or the thoughts of Ryanair on the city of Palermo.'

The site description now speaks of Palermo as 'intoxicating, lively and energetic.'

Twitter users reacted to the description by labelling it as an 'epic fail' and a 'sensational gaffe'.

Steve Knox labelled the description 'typical lazy Ryanair,' and labelled Palermo a 'great city.'

Meanwhile John Hard Tweeted his belief that those upset with the description should 'boycott' the airline.

However, there are others who have simply stated that the original description was 'telling the truth.'

One supporter on Twitter, interestingly, is a group called 'Live Palermo'.

They Tweeted to the no-frills airline expressing their 'support' and Tweeted that they failed to see the 'error' in the original description.

Sicily is known as the birthplace of the Italian Mafia, however in recent years police crackdowns have detained some of the key players.

Dozens were arrested in 'Operation Apocalypse' in June last year, with local police saying that two entire Mafia families had been wiped out.

The investigation also solved a 100-year-old murder of a New York policeman.

Extortion, money laundering and drug trafficking are among the offences alleged by the Palermo Anti-Mafia Investigation Department, which co-ordinated the operation - codenamed Apocalypse or Apocalisse in Italian.

'There hasn't been a dragnet on this scale in many years,' finance police Colonel Calogero Scibetta told Reuters at the time.

'These arrests have wiped out two entire mob families.'

In recent years police have dealt severe blows to the Sicilian Mafia, historically Italy's most powerful criminal group while 'Ndrangheta, which operates out of Calabria at the southern end of the Italian mainland, has grown in strength by becoming a big importer of cocaine.