400,000 hit by new Ryanair cancellations to solve pilot crisis
Written by News on 27/09/2017
Ryanair has announced it is cancelling thousands more flights, with up to around 400,000 passengers likely to be affected.
The airline is also offering 315,000 customers who have already been affected a travel voucher worth up to €40 for each leg of a journey cancelled because of its pilot shortage crisis.
:: Full list of Ryanair route cancellations
It made the announcement while confirming plans to suspend 34 of its routes over the November-March winter season to prevent any further mass cancellations.
More than 2,000 flights to the end of October were abruptly axed earlier this month because of the "mess-up" over pilots’ leave.
Ryanair said on Wednesday that three UK domestic services would be included in the new list of cuts – Gatwick to Belfast, Stansted to Glasgow and Stansted to Edinburgh.
That means the airline will be left without any internal mainland UK services over the winter period.
Derry/Londonderry to Liverpool and Derry/Londonderry to Newcastle will be the only domestic UK flights to continue running.
Ryanair said that by operating 25 fewer aircraft over the winter it could deploy the flight crews to more popular services.
The no-frills carrier also signalled that it would no longer require its pilots to give up a week of their leave.
Michael O’ Leary also sought to defuse frosty relations in an email to passengers, saying the voucher offer is the airline’s way of apologising "for the disruption we caused".
It is worth up to €80 for a return trip though the terms and conditions limit availability.
The vouchers must be redeemed by the end of next month, with flights to be taken by 20 March.
:: Ryanair ‘working hard’ to end flights mess up
The major disappointment for passengers is likely to be that – as well as Easter – the Christmas holidays are not covered by the vouchers because festive services between 20 December and 7 January are excluded.
Infants are also not eligible to receive the vouchers, meaning parents who had been due to fly with young children won’t be issued with an extra €80 on their behalf.
The gesture means Ryanair’s original €25m (£22.2m) cost estimate for the pilot rota blunder has doubled to €50m.
That is because the vouchers are in addition to its statutory compensation obligations but much will depend on how many customers choose to use them and how much the latest cancellations cost the airline.
The pilot shortage has been a PR disaster for Ryanair amid its Always Getting Better drive to improve customer satisfaction since 2014.
During a shareholders’ meeting last Thursday, Mr O’Leary said the firm planned to recruit 120 new pilots within "the next week or two" to help avert the prospect of a fresh wave of cancellations.
He said on Wednesday that the latest actions ruled out any further disruption.
Mr O’Leary pledged: "From today, there will be no more rostering-related flight cancellations this winter or in summer 2018.
"Slower growth this winter, will create lots of spare aircraft and crews which will allow us to manage the exceptional volumes of annual leave we committed to delivering in the 9 months to Dec 2017."
(c) Sky News 2017: 400,000 hit by new Ryanair cancellations to solve pilot crisis
