Well it seems that Ryanair has formally admitted it messed up its pilot holidays – with the airline confirming it will cancel up to 50 flights a day.
One of these thing is a plane – the other is a set of omnishambles. I’ll let you decide which is which – Ryanair Boeing 737-800 at Dublin Airport, Economy Class an Beyond – Cancellation list from Ryanair.
After much public pressure, the airline has publish its cancellation list. Which must had pained the airline to do – but in reality, it had no further choice but to plan for the good of its customers.
The annoying part for customers is – it’s taken a full three days to do, and that customers will be affected (I know of a few people who’ve had to re-schedule flights or even switch carrier because of the airlines actions).
The list looks like this:
- Tue 19th Sept
- Wed 20th Sept
- Thurs 21st Sept – Sun 24th Sept
- Mon 25 Sep, 2 Oct, 9 Oct, 16 Oct, 23 Oct
- Tue 26 Sep, 3 Oct, 10 Oct, 17 Oct, 30 Oct
- Wed 27 Sep, 4 Oct, 11 Oct, 18 Oct, 25 Oct
- Thu 28 Sep, 5 Oct, 12 Oct, 19 Oct, 26 Oct
- Fri 29 Sep, 6 Oct, 13 Oct, 20 Oct, 27 Oct
- Sat 30 Sep, 7 Oct, 14 Oct, 21 Oct, 28 Oct
- Sun 1 Oct, 8 Oct, 15 Oct, 22 Oct
The lists do not make pleasant reading. It might be 2%, but there will be implications with frequencies being cut
Cancellations will affect its major hubs, including routes out of:
- Barcelona
- Brussels Charleroi
- Dublin
- Lisbon
- London Stansted
- Madrid
- Milan Bergamo
- Porto
- Rome Fiumicino
Passengers affected by this will be covered under EC/261 as this omnishambles.
Michael O’Leary of Ryanair has been dragged out, with an apology, and an angry defence the airline is short of pilots, stating:
“While over 98% of our customers will not be affected by these cancellations over the next 6 weeks, we apologise unreservedly to those customers whose travel will be disrupted, and assure them that we have done our utmost to try to ensure that we can re-accommodate most of them on alternative flights on the same or next day.
Ryanair is not short of pilots – we were able to fully crew our peak summer schedule in June, July and August – but we have messed up the allocation of annual leave to pilots in Sept and Oct because we are trying to allocate a full year’s leave into a 9 month period from April to December. This issue will not recur in 2018 as Ryanair goes back onto a 12 month calendar leave year from 1st Jan to 31st December 2018.
This is a mess of our own making. I apologise sincerely to all our customers for any worry or concern this has caused them over the past weekend. We have only taken this decision to cancel this small proportion of our 2,500 daily flights so that we can provide extra standby cover and protect the punctuality of the 98% of flights that will be unaffected by these cancellations.”
A mess of their own making, and with Norwegian Air Shuttle recruiting over 140 Ryanair pilots does not make for a good mix. And of course, there’s room for petty arguments with talks of connection deals sitting in the bin.
Whilst there is a little certainty now with the cancellations list – make no mistake this is a mess – one that needs someone to be invited for a chat with tea… no biscuits.
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