Ryanair is going to cancel 18,000 flights affecting 400,000 passengers in the November 2017-March 2018 period, the no-frills airline announced on Wednesday.
The carrier said it has notified all of its affected customers by email today. They have been offered alternative flights on their chosen route or a full refund.
Ryanair confirmed today that it will slow its growth this winter (Nov 17 to Mar 18), by flying 25 less aircraft (of its 400 fleet) from November, and 10 fewer aircraft (of 445) from April 2018.
The airline said less than 1% of the 50 million passengers it will carry this winter are affected and every one of these customers has received an email today giving them between 5 weeks to 5 months notice of these schedule changes, offering them alternative flights or full refunds of their airfare. They have also received a EUR 40 (EUR 80 return) travel voucher which will allow them to book - during October - a flight on any Ryanair service between October and March 2018.
Ryanair has also emailed each of the 315,000 customers whose flights were previously cancelled over a 6 week period in Sept and Oct. (Ryanair carries 15m customers every 6 weeks) It has offered each of these customers a EUR 40 travel voucher (EUR 80 return), again for travel between October and March 2018.
Ryanair cancelled 2,100 of its over 800,000 annual flights in Sept/Oct due to this rostering problem.
The airline suffered a roster failure in September because it has over allocated months of pilot annual leave during the 4 months from Sept to December.
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 1st of Jan 2018 in full compliance with EU regulations and the IAA’s requirements
