Ryanair is to cancel 40 to 50 flights every day for the next six weeks, in a bid to improve punctuality of flights.
The budget Irish-based airline announced the plan on Friday, saying that it was “unacceptable” that its punctuality had fallen below 80% in the first half of this month.
It also said it had to clear a backlog of staff leave by the end of the year.
The move could affect up to 285,000 passengers, who will be offered alternative flights or refunds.

Sounds like fun… guess you do get what you pay for, hopefully they don’t just start abandoning people with a refund

Cripes – we’re (planning on) flying to Lisbon with them in October.

Source?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41291483

was on the radio this morning DD – rumour was, they suggested, that they’d shed a lot of staff and that was at the root of it

They also said that the number of flights drops “from October” and so they ought to have sufficient staff & planes for their winter programme

I’ve refused to book with Ryanair for a long time (not that I fly that often), and this shows the contempt they have for any kind of “customer service”.

Mrs PB is flying Ryanair from Barcelona to Rome at the end of the month, long weekend for a friends birthday. Nothing from them as yet.

From the BBC link you should find out shortly after packing…
There was some stuff on the legal (EU what they ever done for us) stuff that is expected. The joy of low cost airlines was brought home watching people being told they had a refund being 1000 miles from home while I was getting rebooked and a hotel provided.

All over the news services

Pretty outrageous to be cancelling 40-50 flights a day due officially to them screwing up their own staff rotas. IMO the cancellations are due to the flights being loss making. Ryan Air are obliged only to provide a refund if what you paid or another flight which coukd be many days or weeks in the future

Really S-ty company to be avoided

But customers do have rights under the European Passenger Rights legislation.
“The rules say if the airline doesn’t have a suitable alternative flight, you have to be booked on a rival airline,” said Simon Calder, travel editor of the Independent.
He said passengers should also be able to claim compensation for the cancellations.

EU compensation rules for cancelled flights
Passengers are entitled to assistance and compensation, if the disruption was within an airline’s control
Airlines have to offer full refunds, paid within seven days, or rebookings for a flight cancelled at short notice
In addition, passengers can also claim compensation
Cancellation amounts are: 250 euros (£218) for short-haul, 440 euros (£384) for medium-haul and 600 euros (£523) for long-haul
Passengers who reach their destination more than three hours late can be compensated from 200 to 600 euros, depending on the length of flights and delay

The flights may be loss making ones but that would be the best way to make a choice, but then there are a lot of other factors about planes being in the wrong place – Cancel Luton-Alicante then you lost Alicante to Milan, then Milan to…. and so it goes on.

This’ll be interesting. We flew to Rome this morning with Ryanair, flying home (theoretically at least….) on Friday evening. Not heard anything yet to the contrary, we shall see.

October holiday to Mallorca booked 👿
Not the greatest strategy for a company that has worked so hard to shed its shyster customer service image over the past couple of years.

My flight from Leeds to Montpellier on Thursday was cancelled with 7 hours notice – just as I was about to drive from Newcastle to Leeds with my 5 month old son. Cue a very stressful afternoon trying to make alternative arrangements to get to France to see my parents – eventually got Ryanair to book me on the Edinburgh-Marseille flight on Friday. Not exactly the relaxing start to my well earned break that I’d been looking forward to!

I’m just glad I checked my email before I left. They didn’t give much notice and I’d have quite easily missed it with all the packing/screaming baby etc. Will be billing them for a drive to Edinburgh and back, and looking forward to my €500 compensation.

400,000 shafted. Awful company.

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/ryanair-rights-400000-passengers-cancelled-flights-compensation-hotels-meals-caa-a7949916.html

@lego ouch that’s tough. As for €500 best of luck push hard and don’t be deflected it will likely be a long and frustrating experience . RyanAir have some of the world’s most obnoxious and obstructive people in “customer service” based on my friends experience of trying to get compensation

My parents had it on Thursday.
Coming back from holiday in Portugal, they didnt know a thing until the taxi driver collecting them for the airport came to tell them their flight was cancelled.
Try and ring Ryanair – good luck with that. There is a phone number, but it appears it isnt answered. Online chat – 10,000 people a day are having their flight cancelled, do you think you’ll ever get connected? No chance.
In Ryanairs favour, they did offer them another flight. On Saturday.
Total cost of an extra nights hotel, flights by Monarch, trnasfer to airport was around £600.
How long will Ryanair take to pay that?

We’re booked with them on 6th October to Gran Canaria. How much notice are they giving people?

Can you claim compensation if you have got to cancel the holiday?? I have no flexibility with dates!!

I’ve avoided them completely since they overbooked our flight back from Almeria a couple of years ago.

Split our family of 5 up, took 2 and left three in Spain to eventually take us back to East Midlands via an overnight in Dublin. Then they fought our claim for food and extra travel costs home (we had neglected to take two cars to the airport in anticipation of getting bumped) for months. Bunch of tossers.

WE have booked for Malaga in October 1/2 term, unsure what to do now ???

Can you claim compensation if you have got to cancel the holiday?? I have no flexibility with dates!!

That’s what travel insurance is for. Ryanair will refund the flight, provide accommodation if necessary if you are stranded and give a small amount of compensation for delays.
I’ve claimed from them successfully on line for a cancelled flight (snowed in). My wife not successfully via post after she had a 12 hr delay with no assistance when alone with our then 8 month old daughter.
Unfortunately their home airport is Stansted which is only 45 minutes away, now we use Luton or Heathrow as to avoid using them.

WE have booked for Malaga in October 1/2 term, unsure what to do now ???

I would start a conversation with the credit card you booked on and your insurer – and keep an eye out for last minute deals.

Resolver is your friend. And it probably will be my friend too as we’re booked to go to Seville on the 26th!

Flying today. Hopefully… Pretty amazing step, I would have thought that their cheapest option is to find some way to make the flights happen, that’s in immediate costs and ongoing claims, bad pr.
I guess that’s the reason why O’Leary is a multi millionaire and I’m booking bargain basement flights.

A move this drastic sounds like a company in trouble.

I guess that’s the reason why O’Leary is a multi millionaire and I’m booking bargain basement flights

Don’t have the eu regs here in Oz but had a massive screw up earlier in the year, got 2/3 of the flight cost refunded, $300 apologies for the way out, hotel food and taxis for the way home and out on a choice of flights the next day.
That’s part of what goes on the ticket cost up front.

I’m happy to have the backup rather than fight for it and be faced with paying today’s price to get home.

@wiki it really if you read it. Basically the staff need to take leave etc and they don’t have enough spare people to legally run flights, the accountant will have run the numbers on agency staff vs cancel and the o’leary machine will have decided how much bad publicity costs.
I’m sure at the end he will be spinning it as a positive that it keeps ticket prices low.

I hope as many as possible of the 400k people claim to the maximum extent of the law. I’ve had several flights rescheduled over the last few years and it’s almost always a lie and the flight was pulled or two planes combined due to poor sales. The last time I ended up with a full refund and a voucher (which I never used) as their replacement flights had me in and out of the same place within 3 hours.

Missus just had an email saying the carry on baggage policy has changed too. Bags must now fit under the seat in front of you.

Is the carry on change not 2nd bag/ handbags? I flew this week with a bag for overhead locker and loads others did too with one under seat in front also.

Just listening to Michael O’Leary’s press conference – seems to be a bit clearer what will be cancelled until end of October. Seems they’re trying to cancel flights where they have multiple departures to the same location etc. and can offer alternative flights on the same day.

Full list of flights being published between today and tomorrow.

He’s also said that they will offer full refunds honour and their financial obligations for compensation under EU regulations (without claiming for exceptional circumstances outside their control which is their usual shizzle).

By far the most surprising thing that I heard him apologise TWICE! That might be a first. 😀

So, not as bad a situation as I thought (flying STN-LIS towards end of Oct) – at least those of us with flights booked in the next few weeks have some hope of organising something else but for the people affected this weekend and the coming days, this has been properly shite.

It seems this holiday thing is just a cover up.
Speaking to a commercial pilot friend at the weekend he says it’s bollocks and they simply don’t have enough pilots as they’ve had enough and are jumping ship.

Whatever the story – our flights have been cancelled. 🙁

😕 How did you find out DD, email or on a list somewhere?

We’re supposed to be off to Mallorca in mid October (LPL – PMI)

Edit – found it.

It’s all quite disappointing really. When low-cost companies started flying into a couple of local airports we rejoiced. Early experiences were positive with Madame flying Ryanair once a year. Then the pricing structure began to irritate, the times of flights started to make travel at either end difficult, flights were systematically overbooked, flights started getting cancelled, Easyjet stopped flying at all in Winter. It’s all become such a faff I’d rather sit in a bus for 20 hours than risk booking an unreliable flight.

Yep, supposed to be going to Gran Caneria on the 27th, fortunately haven’t booked anything else as yet.

At least we’ll find out with some notice, unlike some 🙁

It’s on their website geoffers.

Everything up till Sat 28/10 published. Not seeing any EDI cancellations on there so you might be alright.

If you’re flying on 27th fathomer, it’ll be on their site. They’ve published everything up till this weekend, then it’s Mon/Tue/Wed etc until Saturday 28/10.

http://fr-prod-static-pdf.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/flightcancellations.pdf

Mrs PB’s flight from Barca to Rome next week is cancelled but not the return. Managed to swap to same day but later so ok and I get a lie in.

deadlydarcy, I actually meant 27th Oct, buy looking at the link geoffj has posted we’re going to be ok.

Good for us but a right royal pain in the arse for yourself and all the other 1,000’s of people affected.

Thanks dd i fly next week with them, everytime i use them i vow never to use them again but at 60e return alicante manchester i endure the experience.

Sadly they havent cancelled my flight….