Ryanair’s Winter of Discontent gets worse: More flights cancelled.

It seems Ryanair can’t catch a break thanks to its move to change its leave year – with the airline suspending 34 routes the winter season.

This will lead to 18,000 flights sitting in the bin, with 400,000 passengers having to scramble to find new flights.

Ryanair Boeing 737-800 landing at Dublin Airport – Image, Economy Class and Beyond

To aid them, the airline will park 25 aircraft out of 400 during the winter season (November 2017 to March 2018), and 10 aircraft out of 445 in the Spring Season (March 2018 onwards)

The list of routes cancelled include:

• Bucharest – Palermo
• Chania – Athens
• Chania – Pafos
• Chania – Thessaloniki
• Cologne – Berlin (SXF)
• Edinburgh – Szczecin
• Glasgow – Las Palmas
• Hamburg – Edinburgh
• Hamburg – Katowice
• Hamburg – Oslo (TRF)
• Hamburg – Thessaloniki
• Hamburg – Venice (TSF)
• London (LGW) – Belfast
• London (STN) – Edinburgh
• London (STN) – Glasgow
• Newcastle – Faro
• Newcastle – Gdansk
• Sofia – Castellon
• Sofia – Memmingen
• Sofia – Pisa
• Sofia – Stockholm (NYO)
• Sofia – Venice (TSF)
• Thessaloniki – Bratislava
• Thessaloniki – Paris BVA
• Thessaloniki – Warsaw (WMI)
• Trapani – Baden Baden
• Trapani – Frankfurt (HHN)
• Trapani – Genoa
• Trapani – Krakow
• Trapani – Parma
• Trapani – Rome FIU
• Trapani – Trieste
• Wroclaw – Warsaw
• Gdansk – Warsaw

This is one heck of a cancellation list, with lots more flights cancelled besides.

Ryanair are out on a charm offensive to get its customers back. The airline has mailed affected customers who are suffering in the cancellations offerings of scheduled changes or cancellations. All affected customers hit by the new cuts will receive a €40/£40 credit (€80/£80 return) travel voucher for travel between October and March.

The 31,500 customers hit in the previous round of cancellations will also receive a €40/£40 credit (€80/£80 return) travel voucher for travel between October and March, as well as any resolutions given (including re-accommodation, EU261 compensation or refunds issued).

Michael O’Leary has released a statement, which is pretty much as much of an apology as we can expect from the company:

“We sincerely apologise to those customers who have been affected by last week’s flight cancellations, or these sensible schedule changes announced today. While over 99% of our 129m customers will not have been affected by any cancellations or disruptions, we deeply regret any doubt we caused existing customers last week about Ryanair’s reliability, or the risk of further cancellations.

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. We will start a new 12 month leave period on the 1^st of Jan 2018 in full compliance with EU regulations and the IAA’s requirements.

All of the passengers who have been affected by these disruptions have now been offered re-accommodation or full refunds and their applicable EU261 entitlements. In addition today, they are receiving a travel voucher (€40 one way/€80 return) which they may use to book any Ryanair flight of their choice during October for travel between October and March 2018. We look forward to welcoming them all on board.”

The company has a set of FAQ’s if you’re affected (as well as long and unintelligible press release).

Make no mistake, this is yet another shambles of Ryanair’s own making – be it with rostering issues, pay or staff going to other airlines.

As customers who expect to be transported from A to B, adding uncertainty is not a welcome thing. As usual – check your alternatives.

And if you’re in the UK – hang on. I’ve got a deeper look at some of the UK issues coming up…

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