Customers who have booked a flight with Ryanair within the next six weeks may be affected by an initiative by the airline to improve punctuality by canceling up to 50 flights every day during that time while simultaneously informing passengers on very short notice — and the notice was so short for some customers that it was too close for comfort, which caused a significant amount of inconvenience and unnecessary stress.

Schedule of Cancellations of Ryanair Flights Released — As Well As Apologies and an Explanation

This official press release became available in which not only did the cancellations of specific flights appeared; but also this apology from Michael O’Leary, as the chief executive officer of Ryanair was quoted as saying:

“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.”

Official Schedule of Canceled Flights

The airports — which were selected because of the high frequency of flights operated by Ryanair to or from these airports where customers can be offered the most accommodating options — where “one line of flying will be removed” for the next six weeks are as follows:

If you cannot — or do not wish to — take the alternative flights offered, you will receive a full refund and your EU261 compensation.

Your flight is operating as usual — unless you receive an e-mail message indicating the contrary.

The list of cancelled flights — which are all in 2017 and are available to be downloaded in Portable Document Format — are as follows:

• Thursday, September 21 — Sunday, September 24
• Monday, September 25, October 2, October 9, October 16, October 23
• Tuesday, September 26, October 3, October 10, October 17, October 24
• Wednesday, September 27, October 4, October 11, October 18, October 25
• Thursday, September 28, October 5, October 12, October 19, October 26
• Friday, September 29, October 6, October 13, October 20, October 27
• Saturday, September 30, October 7, October 14, October 21, October 28
• Sunday, October 1, October 8, October 15, October 22

What Are Your Options If You Are Affected By the Cancellations?

If your flight is cancelled, you have two options from which to choose:

1. Click Here to Apply for Refund
If you wish to cancel your reservation and claim a full refund of the unused flight or flights, click on the above link and enter your booking details. Refunds will be processed within seven working days back to the form of payment used for the original booking.

2. Click Here To Change Your Cancelled Flight Free of Charge
The easiest way to change your cancelled flight for free — subject to seat availability — is by retrieving your booked flight reservation at the official Internet web site of Ryanair. If you require rerouting options; departing or arriving from another airport served by Ryanair; or changing an unaffected return flight, please contact one of the advisors of Ryanair using its free online chat — or by calling one of its customer service contacts numbers.

Flight cancellations may cause distress; and Ryanair will accommodate your option of choice wherever possible while complying with European Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004:

• You are entitled to assistance and compensation if the disruption was within control of the airline
• Airlines are required to offer full refunds — paid within seven days — or rebooking of a flight for a flight cancelled on short notice
• You can also claim compensation
• Cancellation amounts are:
  • 250 euros for flights of 1,500 kilometers or fewer
  • 440 euros for flights in respect of all flights within the European Union of greater than 1,500 kilometers; and for all other flights between 1,500 kilometers and 3,500 kilometers — with certain exceptions and conditions
  • 600 euros for long-haul flights — which typically is inconsistent with Ryanair
• Passengers who reach their destination greater than three hours late can be compensated from 200 to 600 euros — depending on the length of flights and delay

Inside Take

That Ryanair sincerely regrets and apologises for these cancellations is refreshing for an airline known to not exactly be the friendliest to its customers — but an official announcement of the cancellations should have been released as soon as possible prior to the first customer needlessly experiencing unnecessary inconvenience.

Did management at Ryanair believe that they had no other choice and were ultimately forced to publicly release an official announcement?

Despite the explanation and apology, management at Ryanair felt compelled to stress that the flight cancellations will affect fewer than two percent of all customers over the next six weeks — that is still up to as many as 50 flights per day — and the majority of these passengers will be offered alternative flights on the same or next day…

…but of course, that may likely be no consolation to you if you are one of the two percent of passengers affected by the flight cancellations…

Photograph ©2014 by Brian Cohen.