Ryanair has released the full list of flights that will be cancelled over the next six weeks following its ‘mess up’ over arranging leave for pilots.
Following public pressure, the airline has listed all flights that will be axed fromThursday September 21 to Tuesday October 31 on its website.
Chief executive Michael O’Leary apologised following a public outcry after the airline said it would cancel an average of 50 flights a day over the six-week period.
He said the cancellations have been allocated, where possible, to its bigger base airports, and routes with multiple daily frequencies so the airline can offer the maximum number of alternate flights and routes in order to minimise inconvenience to passengers.
Among those cancelled with be one in four flights out of Stansted and one in 13 flights out of Dublin.
The airline said it will email customers affected with offers of alternative flights or full refunds, and details of their EU261 compensation entitlement.
About 400,000 passengers will be affected and Ryanair’s compensation bill will be in the region of £18 million.
At a press conference on Monday afternoon, O’Leary said: "This is our mess up. When we make a mess in Ryanair, we come out with our hands up and we try to explain why we’ve made the mess."
He said reports Ryanair was short of pilots were untrue, explaining: "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 September and October because we are trying to allocate a full year’s leave into a nine-month period from April to December.
Ryanair said on Friday it would cut 2% of scheduled flights until October 31, but initially only released details of flights that were to be cancelled over the weekend.
An update on Sunday night revealed details of cancellations up to and including this Wednesday.
At the conference, O’Leary said it had taken time to release the full list of cancelled services as it had given priority to communicating with passengers due to travel in the short term.
