CAA REPORT SHOWS NATS MISLED PARLIAMENT OVER FLIGHT DELAYS, ENGINEERS AT HOME
AND LACK OF PRE-PLANNING

Ryanair, the UK’s no.1 airline, today (14 Mar) welcomed the CAA’s interim report into NATS’s ATC collapse on 28 Aug last, which disproves false claims made by CEO, Martin Rolfe, in NATS’s “Whitewash” Report published last Sept, including;

1. NATS claimed just 575 flights were “delayed” (approx. 100,000 pass.), but CAA confirms over 700,000 passengers were disrupted.
2. NATS CEO, Martin Rolfe, claimed “engineers worked as quickly as they could”, yet CAA confirms NATS engineers were not at work but were “at home due to the bank holiday”.
3. Under Martin Rolfe’s management, UK NATS has a lack of pre-planning, documentation, and coordination.

Given their mismanagement and incompetence, UK NATS must now reimburse airlines and passengers for the costs they suffered as a result of NATS’s system collapse on 28 Aug last. NATS overpaid CEO (£1.3m p.a.), should now be dismissed and get someone competent to run the UK ATC system for airlines and passengers.

Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary said:

“Today’s CAA report rubbishes many of the false claims made by NATS in their Sept 2023 “Whitewash” report. The CAA confirms that over 700,000 passengers were impacted, and not just 575 flights (approx. 100,000 passengers), which Martin Rolfe originally claimed in front of the UK Parliament Transport Committee.

The CAA report confirms (unbelievably) that NATS engineers were sitting at home in their pyjamas on the UK’s August bank holiday weekend, which is one of the busiest travel weekends of the year for air travel. In any properly managed ATC service, engineers would be onsite to cover system breakdowns instead of sitting at home unable to log into the system. The fact that key NATS engineers were sitting at home during one of the peak travel weekends, combined with findings that NATS has a fundamental lack of pre-planning, documentation, and coordination, clearly demands senior management changes. Overpaid NATS CEO Martin Rolfe’s position in untenable. He should be removed, and somebody competent employed to run UK ATC, to ensure its engineers are at work during busy weekends and to ensure that UK NATS has a management team delivering a functional ATC system with adequate pre-planning, documentation, and coordination.  

UK airlines and passengers are paying NATS among the highest ATC fees in Europe. In Ryanair’s case, we pay over £100m p.a. and we are entitled to expect an efficient well-run service, rather than mismanagement and incompetence we suffered on 28 Aug 2023 due to the NATS system collapse. It’s time for Martin Rolfe to go, and if he won’t quit, then Transport Secretary Mark Harper (who owns 49% of NATS) should remove him.”

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (11 Mar) renewed its partnership with Vistair, a market leading provider of advanced Operational Content Management and Safety Management Systems for the aviation industry, for a further 5 years. As part of this renewed agreement, Ryanair will continue to use Vistair’s industry leading document management system, DocuNet, to streamline the creation, distribution, and maintenance of operational manuals as the airline continues to grow to 800 aircraft and 300 million passengers by 2034.

Ryanair’s Chief Operating Officer, Neal McMahon, said:

“We are pleased to announce a 5 year extension to our longstanding partnership with Vistair. As Europe’s No.1 airline, Vistair’s reliable and efficient document management system, DocuNet, has helped us maintain operational efficiency and responsiveness across our vast fleet and complex operations. DocuNet continues to meet our high expectations, contributing to our ongoing strong operational performance ensuring that Ryanair remains at the forefront of operational and compliance standards as we continue to grow to 800 aircraft and 300 million passengers by 2034.”

Dominic Clarke, Chief Commercial Officer at Vistair, added:

“We are delighted to extend our partnership with Ryanair. The renewal of this agreement reflects the trust Ryanair places in Vistair and DocuNet. As Europe’s largest airline group, superior operational performance is paramount. We look forward to continuing to support Ryanair in achieving operational excellence and maintaining the highest standards of compliance.”

In January 2024, Vistair and Comply365 announced their merger creating a leading global provider of compliance, safety and data intelligence technologies serving the aviation, defence, and rail industries.

Following Ryanair’s purchase of 500 tonnes of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from OMV in October last, the airline has today (8^th Mar) announced that it will take an additional 500 tonnes of SAF from OMV in 2024. This agreement will save a further 1,250+ tonnes in CO₂ emissions (equivalent to c.100 Ryanair flights from Dublin to Vienna). 

Under Ryanair and OMV’s MOU agreement, Ryanair has unique access to purchase up to 160,000 metric tonnes of SAF from OMV up to 2030.

Ryanair’s Director of Sustainability, Tom Fowler, said:

“We’re delighted to be taking an additional 500 tonnes of SAF from OMV this year, in addition to the 500 tonnes we agreed in October last. SAF plays a key role in our Pathway to Net Zero decarbonisation strategy in which we have committed to increasing our use of over the coming years – a commitment that this deal with OMV will help move further forward. OMV is a key partner for Ryanair in Austria, Germany and Romania and we look forward to growing this partnership as Europe’s largest airline group.”

INDUSTRY-LEADING ROUTE NETWORK, FREQUENCIES, AND FARES FOR CORPORATE TRAVEL

Ryanair, Europe’s No. 1 airline, today (6^th Mar) announced a new partnership agreement with corporate travel distributor, Kyte, which will enable Kyte’s network of corporate travel partners to access Ryanair’s industry leading low fares and network of over 3,600 daily flights (including key city connections) across 235+ destinations with regular morning and evening services ensuring efficient low-cost travel for businesses. 

This partnership will provide Ryanair with streamlined access to the travel ecosystem, including a vast array of corporate travel partners, without the need for legacy GDSs, while Kyte’s network of corporate travel partners benefit from Kyte’s advanced new technology solution, which effectively supports Ryanair’s content and functionality within their own web, mobile, and alternative portals for a seamless corporate customer experience.

Ryanair’s Dara Brady said:

“We are pleased to announce our exciting new partnership with Kyte, which will enable Kyte’s corporate travel partners to access Ryanair’s industry leading network of 3,600 daily flights across 235+ destinations, our regular schedules which cater perfectly for business travel, unrivalled on-time performance, and our budget-friendly low fares all through Kyte’s state-of-the art distribution technology.

We look forward to working further with Kyte over the coming years as Ryanair continues to grow to carry 300m passengers p.a. by 2034.”

Alice Ferrari, CEO & Co-founder KYTE added:

“As the airline industry transitions to API distribution this announcement demonstrates Ryanair’s progressive mindset around supporting new technologies. I’m extremely proud that Ryanair has chosen Kyte as their first official non-GDS distribution partner.

We are excited to be working with Ryanair in delivering easy access to the airline’s convenient low-cost travel to our corporate travel partners thanks to Kyte’s modern and standardised interface. Ryanair’s content via the Kyte channel will also be made available on our partner desktop solutions such as AirGateway.

This partnership demonstrates our commitment to helping airlines like Ryanair broaden their reach and open new and relevant revenue streams, on their terms.”

NOW EXPECT ONLY 40 OF 57 B737 DELIVERIES FOR PEAK S24

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Fri 1 Mar) confirmed that Boeing now expect to deliver just 40 of the 57 planned B737-MAX8200 aircraft that were due to be delivered to Ryanair before the end of June 2024. Ryanair’s current S24 schedule was based on receiving a minimum of 50 B737 aircraft, and Ryanair will now have to reduce approx. 10 aircraft lines of flying for the peak summer months of Jul, Aug and Sept. This will cause some minor schedule changes in the context of Ryanair’s 600 aircraft fleet and will reduce frequencies on existing routes rather than cutting new routes.

Ryanair has already implemented these schedule cuts at some of its higher cost airports, most notably Dublin, Milan Malpensa, Warsaw Modlin and 4 Portuguese airports where costs are rising faster than inflation in 2024. All affected passengers have already received schedule change notifications offering them alternative flight times or full refunds if they prefer.  

Ryanair regrets these further 10 Boeing delivery delays and expects that these further S24 schedule changes will reduce FY March 2025 traffic to just under 200m passengers compared to an original target of 205m. Ryanair will now work with Boeing to accept aircraft deliveries during the peak months of Jul, Aug and Sept 2024, but given these delivery uncertainties, it will be unable to put these aircraft on sale for peak S24.

Ryanair’s Group CEO Michael O’Leary said:  

“We are very disappointed at these latest Boeing delivery delays, but we continue to work with Boeing to maximise the number of new B737 aircraft we receive by the end of June, which we can confidently release for sale to customers during the S24 peak. We will now work with Boeing to take delayed aircraft deliveries during Aug and Sept 2024 to help Boeing reduce their delivery backlog.

We regret any inconvenience caused to some customers and our airport partners by these enforced S24 schedule changes, which will reduce our full year traffic growth from 184m in FY24 to between 198m to 200m in FY25. We are working with our airport partners to deliver some growth to them, albeit later in Sept and Oct (rather than Jul and Aug). This traffic growth can only be delivered at lower fares during these shoulder months.

Boeing continues to have Ryanair’s wholehearted support as they work through these temporary challenges, and we are confident that their senior management team, led by Dave Calhoun (CEO) and Brian West (CFO), will resolve these production delays and quality control issues in both Wichita and Seattle.

We expect these latest Boeing delivery delays, which regrettably are beyond Ryanair’s control, combined with the grounding of up to 20% of our Airbus competitors’ A320 fleets in Europe, will lead to more constrained capacity and slightly higher air fares for consumers in Europe in Summer 2024. We therefore urge all Ryanair customers to book early in order to secure the lowest available air fares for Summer 2024.”

RYANAIR LAUNCHES £24.99 RESCUE FARES ON LONDON – NICE ROUTE

Ryanair today (29 Feb) launched rescue fares from just £24.99 for passengers affected by Wizz Air’s sudden closure of its London – Nice route for Summer ‘24. Ryanair operates daily London – Nice flights with low fares and high load factors.

This latest route cut follows Wizz Air’s sudden cancellation of over 80 routes across Europe in the past 6 weeks, including routes to/from Albania, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, and Slovenia.

Ryanair’s Head of Comms, Jade Kirwan, said:

“Ryanair yet again saves the day following Wizz Air’s sudden and surprise closure of its London – Nice route for Summer ’24. We will be happy to welcome Wizz Air passengers on our London – Nice route at Ryanair’s rescue fares starting from just £24.99 for April and May travel. Ryanair is Europe’s most reliable and low fare airline and with daily London – Nice flights all we can say is “Au Revoir” Wizz Air. Passengers can book these £24.99 rescue fares on Ryanair’s London – Nice route for Summer ’24 travel on www.ryanair.com now.”