Ryanair today (29^th Sept) emailed all (under 1%) of its customers who were affected by its deeply regretted 2,100 flight cancellations in Sept/Oct, or the 18,000 schedule changes (announced on Wed, 27^th)  from November 2017 to March 2018, in order to explain their entitlements under EU261 regulations as follows.

Ryanair is required to offer disrupted customers (on cancelled flights) the option of a full refund or re-routing to their final destination as follows;

(A) Refund Option:

A full refund will be given of an unused flight sector and associated fees.  If the disrupted flight is their outbound sector, customers will also be offered a full refund of the return sector.

(B)  Re-routing Options:

Ryanair will offer all disrupted customers the following sequence of re-accommodation options;

1. First, move the customer to the next available Ryanair flight on the same route.

If this option is not available same or next day, then;

2. Move the customer to the next available Ryanair flight from/to a suitable alternative airport/s (for example: Luton or Gatwick in the case of Stansted).

If this option is not available same or next day, then;

3. Offer the customer re-accommodation on any one of our agreed disruption partner airlines to their destination as follows;

Easyjet, Jet2, Vueling, Cityjet, Aer Lingus, Norwegian or Eurowings airlines.

If this option is not available same or next day, then;

4. Offer the customer re-accommodation on any comparable alternative transport (another airline flight, train, bus or car hire) with the cost of this comparable transport ticket to be assessed on a case by case basis.

Under EU261, Ryanair will also reimburse any reasonable out of pocket expenses incurred by customers as a result of these flight cancellations, subject to receiving an EU261 expense claim  form from customers supported by original receipts.

If any Ryanair customer on one of these disrupted flights believes that they may have chosen an option that was not suitable for them as a result of any misunderstanding of their EU261 rights, then they should write directly to Ryanair’s Director of Customer Services and Ryanair will assist them in any way it can to obtain their full EU261 rights and entitlements.

Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs said:

“We apologise again sincerely for the disruption and inconvenience our rostering failure has caused some of our customers.  Over the past week we have refunded/reaccommodated over 97% of the customers affected by the 18^th September cancellations.  This week (by close of business on Sun, 1^st Oct), we will have reaccommodated/refunded over 90% of the 400,000 customers who were notified of schedule changes (on flights between November 2017 and March 2018) on Wed 27^th.

In addition, every single affected customer has received a travel voucher for a €40 one way flight (€80 return) for travel in October to March.  We have restored the reliability and punctuality of our flight operations.  Over the past 7 days we have operated over 15,000 flights with over 96% of our first wave morning departures operating on time, or with zero flight cancellations.

We have taken on extra customer service staff and are moving now to process and expedite all EU261 claims from affected customers.  We are committed to processing all such claims within 21 days of receipt and hope to have all such claims settled before the end of October.”

Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline today (27 Sept) confirmed 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. By reducing its flying schedule in this controlled manner Ryanair will;

-eliminate all risk of further flight cancellations, because slower growth creates lots of spare aircraft and crews across Ryanair’s 86 bases this winter.

-roster all of the extra pilot leave necessary in Oct, Nov and Dec to meet the IAA’s requirement to complete a 9 month annual leave transition period (April to Dec ‘17) so that Ryanair starts a new calendar leave year from 1^st Jan 2018 with no backlog.

-roster almost 40% of the annual pilot leave requirement for 2018 in Q1 2018, which removes risk of roster problems recurring next year.

-roll out a series of low fare seat sales for winter 2017 confident that there will be no further roster related cancellations.

Slower growth this winter will have positive but differing impacts on Ryanair’s stakeholder groups as follows;

1. For Ryanair Customers

(a) Flying 25 fewer aircraft this winter will result in a number of flight and schedule changes from Nov to Mar 2018. We have less than 400,000 customers booked on these flights, (which affects less than 1 flight per day across our 200 airports over the 5 month winter period), and many of these flights have zero bookings at this time. Less than 1% of the 50m customers Ryanair 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 €40 (€80 return) travel voucher which will allow them to book – during October – a flight on any Ryanair service between October and March 2018.

(b) We have 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) We have offered each of these customers a €40 travel voucher (€80 return), again for travel between October and March 2018. This flight voucher is in addition to the flight re-accommodation/refunds they received last week, and applicable to the EU261 compensation which they may claim and receive over the coming weeks. (Note: €40 per seat exceeds Ryanair current ave. fare).

(c) For the other 99% of Ryanair customers who are unaffected by these flight cancellations and schedule changes, this slower rate of growth means that from today there is no risk of further roster related flight cancellations. These measures have already restored Ryanair’s industry leading reliability and punctuality. Customers will also enjoy lower airfares, as Ryanair responds to last week’s rostering failure, by rolling out seat sales over the coming days and weeks. This starts this weekend with a 1 million, €9.99 one way, seat sale for travel in Oct, Nov and Dec.

2. For Ryanair’s Pilots

(a) We appreciate the widespread support we have received from our 4,200 pilots over the past weeks. Hundreds of pilots, and many of their ERC’s have been in regular contact with the airline offering to work days off, to work one week of their allocated month of leave, and offering to go public to correct the false claims made about them, and Ryanair, by competitor airline pilots in certain media outlets. We appreciate their professionalism which has meant that since last Monday (18^th) Ryanair has operated over 16,000 flights with only 3 cancellations, and over 96% of all first wave flights departing on time.

(b) This slower growth will provide stability to pilot rosters from November to March. We will not need pilots to give up one week of their well-earned annual leave from Nov. onwards. Slower growth creates a large surplus of standby pilots so we can allocate all annual leave due in the 3 months to December, and more again in Q1 of 2018.

(c) We have communicated these changes by email to Ryanair pilots today. We have assured them that all their annual leave is protected. This now eliminates the roster problems this winter, because slower growth means we no longer require our pilots to reorganise their annual leave.

We are implementing a €10,000Capts/€5,000F.O. base supplements at Dublin, Stansted, Berlin and Frankfurt from 1^st October as we agreed these pay increases with the 4 base ERC’s at recent meetings. We received requests from a number of other ERC’s who wish to discuss these issues, and we have agreed to schedule meetings with these ERC’s over the coming months.

(d) We will not respond or accede to anonymous demands made via unsigned emails for group or regional meetings, or for union interference at these internal ERC meetings. Many of our pilots and ERC’s have confirmed that these unsigned letters were drafted by pilots/unions of competitor airlines who wish to pursue an industrial relations agenda at the expense of Ryanair and its pilots.

(e) We have also written to our pilots to correct last week’s false claims made about our pilot recruitment. In the current year under 100 Captains have left (mainly to retirement or long haul airlines) and less than 160 F.O’s (mostly to long haul airlines). Over the next 8 months Ryanair has recruited and will train over 650 pilots not only to replace these leavers/retirees but also to crew up for the 50 new Boeing aircraft we will buy to May 2018 to bring our fleet to 445 for S18. Contrary to false claims of pilot shortages, Ryanair has in recent weeks seen a big surge in pilot applications from Gulf carriers and in Germany and Italy where both Air Berlin and Alitalia are in bankruptcy and hundreds of their pilots are facing job losses or steep cuts in their pay and conditions.

3. For our Shareholders

(a) This slower rate of growth will slightly reduce our traffic this year and next. Our monthly growth from Nov 17 to March 18 will slow from 9% to 4%. Our full year traffic of 131m will now moderate to 129m, which is 7.5% up on last year. By slowing our summer 2018 fleet growth from 445 to 435 aircraft, we expect traffic to March 2019 will slow from 142m to 138m, a 7% rate of growth.

(b) The total cost of the flight cancellations last week should be under €25m. We expect the cost of the free flight vouchers issued today to affected customers will be less than €25m. We expect slightly lower yields over the next two months as we promote seat sales. We do not expect these initiatives to alter our current year guidance of between €1.40bn to €1.45bn PAT. We will provide a full update on these issues to shareholders during the half year results in late October.

4. For our People

We have rearranged our pilot recruitment and rostering function and will invest in more rostering resources to ensure this failure cannot recur. The 13,000 highly skilled aviation professionals in Ryanair continue to deliver Europe’s lowest air fares to a growing and loyal customer base of 129m passengers p.a. This, over 30 year record of exceptional delivery, will continue but only if we learn from this mistake and work hard to ensure it never happens again. In order to focus on repairing this rostering problem this winter, Ryanair will eliminate all management distractions starting with its interest in Alitalia. We have notified the Alitalia bankruptcy Commissioners that we will not be pursuing our interest in Alitalia or submitting any further offers for the airline.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said

“We sincerely apologise to those customers who have been affected by last week’s flight cancellations, or these sensible schedule changes announced today. While over 99% of our 129m customers will not have been affected by any cancellations or disruptions, we deeply regret any doubt we caused existing customers last week about Ryanair’s reliability, or the risk of further cancellations.

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 1^st of Jan 2018 in full compliance with EU regulations and the IAA’s requirements.

All of the passengers who have been affected by these disruptions have now been offered re-accommodation or full refunds and their applicable EU261 entitlements. In addition today, they are receiving a travel voucher (€40 one way/€80 return) which they may use to book any Ryanair flight of their choice during October for travel between October and March 2018. We look forward to welcoming them all on board.”

RYANAIR SLOWER GROWTH PLAN – 32 Q & A’s

1. What have Ryanair announced?
   We plan to grow more slowly (4% instead of 9%) this winter, by flying fewer of our 400 aircraft between November and March 2018.
2. How will I know if my flight between November and March is affected by these changes?
   You have received an email notice from Ryanair today (Wednesday 27^th Sept) advising you of any flight changes, and offering you alternative flights or a full refund. If you have not received an email from Ryanair today then you are among the 99% of customers whose flights will be unaffected by these changes.
3. Why is Ryanair going to grow more slowly?
   Ryanair has grown rapidly over 30 years to carry 129m customers p.a. more than any other EU airline. However, it suffered a roster failure in September because it has over allocated months of pilot annual leave during the 4 months from Sept to December.
4. Why not allocate less annual leave?
   Because Ryanair agreed with the IAA to operate a 9 month annual leave transition period from April – December 2017 to move from a holiday leave year of April 16 to March 17 to a calendar annual leave year from Jan 18 – Dec 18.
5. Is Ryanair short of pilots?
   Ryanair with 400 aircraft currently employs over 4,200 pilots a ratio of over 10 pilots per aircraft. Only 4 pilots are needed per aircraft per day.
6. Is Ryanair struggling to recruit pilots?
   Ryanair has more than 2,500 pilots on a waiting list hoping to join Europe’s No. 1 airline. We have offered jobs to over 650 new pilots who will join us between now and May 2018.
7. Are lots of pilots leaving Ryanair?
   No in the current year less than 100 of over 2,000 captains left Ryanair (mainly retirements or to long haul airlines) and less than 160 F.O’s who have mainly left to join long haul airlines.
8. What does this slower winter growth mean for customers?
   Less than 400,000 customers (booked on flights across our 200 airports between November and March will today receive between 5 weeks and 5 months’ notice of schedule changes. They may switch to alternative Ryanair flights or obtain full refund if new flight times/dates don’t suit. They will also receive a €40 one way (or €80 return) travel voucher which they can use in October to book a Ryanair flight for travel between October to March.
9. What have Ryanair done for customers on the 2,100 flights cancelled last Mon 18 Sept?
   Over 97% of these customers received flight changes or full refunds by Sun 24 Sept. Today these 315,000 customers have also received a €40 travel voucher (€80 return) to book a Ryanair flight between October to March 2018.
10. Is there “flight chaos” in Ryanair?
    All flights are operating normally. Over the past week from Tues 19 to Mon 25 Sept Ryanair operated over 16,000 flights with over 96% of first wave departures on time, and just 3 flights cancelled (due to 1 runway closure and 2 adverse weather diversions).
11. How many flights did Ryanair cancel in Sept/Oct due to this rostering problem?
    2,100 of our over 800,000 annual flights.
12. How many flights will be schedule changed over the 5 months Nov to March to meet this slower growth plan?
    Less than 18,000 of our 800,000 annual flights. This is less than 1 flight per day per airport across our 200 airports over the 5 month winter period. Many of these flights, especially in Jan, Feb and March have no bookings whatsoever.
13. How many customers have been affected by todays schedule changes?
    Less than 400,000 of Ryanair’s 129m customers in the current year. Over 99% of Ryanair customers have been unaffected.
14. What effect will slower growth have on Ryanair pilots?
    It will create 25 more spare aircraft and more than 100 daily extra standby pilots from November to March. It means all calendar months of pilot leave will now be secure and Ryanair will not require pilots to reorganise their annual leave.
15. How many Ryanair pilots have a calendar month of leave to take before December?
    Almost 50% of Ryanair pilots will receive 1 month off over 4 months as follows;

Sept	over 460 pilots
Oct	”    470    ”
Nov	”    620    ”
Dec	”    510    ”

 

16. Will this A/L rostering problem recur in 2018?
    No because A/L will be allocated over a full 12 month period in 2018.
17. Has there been management changes in the pilot rostering area?
    The pilot recruitment and rostering function has been taken over by Ryanair’s Chief People Officer who will over the next 6 months hire more rostering managers, schedule the training of the 650 pilots Ryanair has already recruited to fly Ryanair’s S18 fleet of 435 operating aircraft, and meet with ERC’s and pilots to address their concerns.
18. How much will the 2,100 cancellations cost Ryanair?
    The refunds and EU261 costs will cost Ryanair under €25m while we expect the free flight vouchers will cost less than €25m.
19. Have all affected customers been advised of these winter schedule changes?
    Yes, all affected customers have received email notifications today.
20. Are these schedule change customers entitled to EU261 compensation?
    No as these schedule changes have been made with 5 weeks to 5 months of advance notice, EU261 compensation does not arise.
21. Will this slower growth affect Ryanair traffic numbers?
    Ryanair will now carry over 129m customers in the year to March 2018 (previously 131m) and in the year to March 2019 growth will slow from 142m to 138m customers.
22. Will fares rise as a result of this slower growth?
    Ryanair will keep reducing fares. A series of seat sales will roll out over the next few months starting with a 1 million seat sale this weekend at fares from €9.99 one way.
23. Will slower growth affect Ryanair profits?
    Ryanair expects its full year PAT forecast of €1.40bn to €1.45bn to remain unchanged. Although over the next two years as Ryanair hires more pilots and raises pilot pay, costs will rise slightly but we don’t believe this will impact profitability.
24. Will Ryanair be doing anything more for its pilots?
    We have already agreed €10,000/€5,000 pay increases with our pilot ERC’s (Employee Representative Committee) at Dublin, Stansted, Frankfurt and Berlin. Ryanair has also received requests from other base ERC’s for meetings to discuss pay and conditions and will be arranging these meetings over the coming months.
25. Will Ryanair meet with other airlines’ pilots or pilot unions?
    Ryanair only meets directly with its people. It will not meet with competitor pilots or their unions.
26. Will there be any more cancellations?
    This slower growth means we will have surplus spare aircraft and pilots all winter and in summer 2018. In the last week we operated over 16,000 flights with only 3 cancellations, 1 due to a runway closure and 2 adverse weather diversions.
27. How do I know if my flight has been affected?
    You will have received a schedule change email from Ryanair either on Mon 18 Sept or today Wed 27 Sept. If you have not received an email notification from Ryanair then you are one of the 99% of customers unaffected by these cancellations or schedule changes.
28. Do Ryanair pilots suffer low pay or poor working conditions?
    Ryanair pilots enjoy great pay and industry leading T’s & C’s as follows:

• Captain’s earn between €120,000 to €180,000 p.a.
• At Dublin and 3 other bases this has recently increased by €10,000 p.a.
• FO’s can expect to be promoted to Captain within 4 years of joining Ryanair
• Pilots enjoy a fixed roster of 5 days duty followed by 4 days off which equates to a double bank holiday weekend after every 5 days of work
• Pilots by law cannot fly more than 900 hrs p.a.

29. Will Ryanair slow down its aircraft orders?
    We will buy 50 new Boeing 737 aircraft between Sept 17 and May 18. We buy 20 aircraft from Boeing in the winter of 2018/19.
30. Will Ryanair be meeting directly with its pilots?
    We normally meet with our 86 Pilot base ERC’s each winter. These meetings have already started and agreed pay increases (base supplements) at Dublin, Stansted, Berlin and Frankfurt bases. We are now scheduling meetings with other bases as individual pilots and ERC’s have requested meetings.
31. Will Ryanair hire more pilots?
    We plan to increase our pilot recruitment over the next 12 months from 5.2 crews (10.4 pilots) per aircraft to 5.5 crews (11 pilots) per aircraft. We will also need to hire fewer pilots in the winter of 2018/19 because of a timing gap between aircraft orders, when we only take delivery of 20xB737 aircraft between Sept 18 to May 2019 instead of the usual 50 aircraft deliveries this winter.
32. Is there a list of routes that are suspended from November for the winter following these 25 aircraft groundings?
    The following 34 routes are suspended for the winter season from November to March 2018

 

1.	Bucharest – Palermo	18.	Sofia – Castellon
2.	Chania – Athens	19.	Sofia – Memmingen
3.	Chania – Pafos	20.	Sofia – Pisa
4.	Chania – Thessaloniki	21.	Sofia – Stockholm (NYO)
5.	Cologne – Berlin (SXF)	22.	Sofia – Venice (TSF)
6.	Edinburgh – Szczecin	23.	Thessaloniki – Bratislava
7.	Glasgow – Las Palmas	24.	Thessaloniki – Paris BVA
8.	Hamburg – Edinburgh	25.	Thessaloniki – Warsaw (WMI)
9.	Hamburg – Katowice	26.	Trapani – Baden Baden
10.	Hamburg – Oslo (TRF)	27.	Trapani – Frankfurt (HHN)
11.	Hamburg – Thessaloniki	28.	Trapani – Genoa
12.	Hamburg – Venice (TSF)	29.	Trapani – Krakow
13.	London (LGW) – Belfast	30.	Trapani – Parma
14.	London (STN) – Edinburgh	31.	Trapani – Rome FIU
15.	London (STN) – Glasgow	32.	Trapani – Trieste
16.	Newcastle – Faro	33.	Wroclaw – Warsaw
17.	Newcastle – Gdansk	34.	Gdansk – Warsaw

 

All other of Ryanair’s 1,800 routes will continue to operate for the winter. Some have had schedule changes but customers have been offered alternative flights on their chosen route or a full refund.

 

Ryanair Holdings PLC today (21 Sept) held its 2017 AGM at its Dublin Offices during which shareholders approved all resolutions by substantial majorities. The shareholder votes in favour of the Financial Report (99.2% in favour) and the Remuneration Report (88.7%) were passed with increased majorities compared to 2016.

Ryanair Chairman, David Bonderman, paid tribute to James Osborne, who tragically passed away in August having served as a Director of Ryanair for over 20 years, and expressed his condolences to Mr Osborne’s family and friends.

Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary apologised to shareholders, and again to customers, for the cancellation of 2,100 of its over 103,000 flights over a 6 week period in September and October, due to a failure within its pilot rostering function. Ryanair expects by the end of this week to have re-accommodated (or authorised refund requests to) over 95% of the 315,000 customers affected by these cancellations.

 

Ryanair today (18 Sept) confirmed that it has published the full list of flight cancellations (now less than 50 per day) between Thurs 21^st Sept. to Tues 31^st Oct. next. These cancellations have been allocated where possible, to Ryanair’s bigger base airports, and routes with multiple daily frequencies so that Ryanair can offer these disrupted customers the maximum number of alternate flights and routes in order to minimise inconvenience to them.

The full list of these flight cancellations (from Thurs 21^st to Thurs Oct 31^st) will appear on the Ryanair.com website later today, and customers affected by these cancellations will be emailed with offers of alternative flights or full refunds, and details of their EU261 compensation entitlement.

The airports where one line of flying will be removed for the next 6 weeks are as follows, (these airports have been selected because of the high frequency of flights Ryanair operates to/from these airports where customers can be offered the most accommodating options):

Barcelona	1 of 12 lines of flights
Brussels Charl	1 of 13 lines of flights
Dublin	1 of 23 lines of flights
Lisbon	1 of 4 lines of flights
London Stan	2 of 41 lines of flights
Madrid	1 of 13 lines of flight
Milan Bergamo	1 of 14 lines of flights
Porto	1 of 8 lines of flights
Rome Fiumi	1 of 3 lines of flights

While Ryanair sincerely regrets and apologises for these cancellations, it pointed out that they will affect less than 2% of all customers over the next 6 weeks, and the majority of these passengers will be offered alternative flights on the same or next day. For those passengers who cannot, or do not wish to take the alternative flights offered they will receive a full refund and their EU261 compensation.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said;

“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 1^st Jan to 31^st 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.”

Please click here for full list of cancelled flights.

Ryanair today (14 Sept) welcomed the decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in the “Mons” case which found in favour of Ryanair by rejecting the CTC Union argument that the home base (i.e where crew start and end their work day) should be the sole determinant of what court jurisdiction can hear disputes on labour issues.

The ECJ has ruled that all current factors such as where the worker gets their instructions, where goods/passengers are loaded/unloaded, where the work tools are stored, where the work is organised/performed and where the worker returns to at the end of their duty should continue to be considered in conjunction with the home base as part of an overall assessment in determining jurisdiction.

 

This ECJ decision does not change the status quo of Irish Contracts of Employment for Ryanair crew based across Europe. Ryanair will continue to employ its crew on Irish contracts of employment, and this decision only updates the criteria for assessing the jurisdiction of national courts to hear legal cases locally and does not alter the law applicable to the contract, which is determined by the Rome I regulation (593/2008).

All EU Member States’ national employment legislation is derived from EU directives to ensure protection for employees in relation to areas including annual leave, maternity leave and sickness benefits. Irish legislation has adopted all EU directives on employment rights which are also covered in Ryanair contracts of employment and in some cases, offers better protection than some EU countries; for example, maternity leave in Ireland is more favourable than in Belgium and the Irish minimum wage is also amongst the highest in Europe.

Ryanair’s Chief People Officer Eddie Wilson said:

“We welcome this “Mons” case ruling which upholds the existing EU rules on the jurisdiction of Member States national courts, and accepts Ryanair’s position that just one criteria (i.e. basing) cannot unilaterally determine jurisdiction. Maintaining broad assessment criteria ensures that the most appropriate jurisdiction should apply in cases involving international transport workers rather than a sole criterion approach, which would narrow the assessment and restrict movement and flexibility with a myriad of regulations and different crews throughout Europe.

We do not believe this “Mons” ruling will in any way alter our Irish contracts of employment or the union rights which all of our people enjoy under the protection of the Irish Constitution.” 

 

Ryanair, Europe’s No 1 airline, today (11 Sep) called on the French Macron Government and European Commission to take immediate action to prevent the skies over Europe being closed yet again tomorrow (Tuesday) by French ATC unions.

Ryanair regrets that it has been forced to cancel 110 flights on Tuesday (12 Sep) to/from/over France, with further cancellations possible and delays likely as French ATC unions yet again close the skies over Europe.

Ryanair and other EU airlines have repeatedly called upon the Commission to introduce three simple measures which would alleviate the impact of these frequent ATC strikes on Europe’s citizens:

• require French ATC unions to engage in binding arbitration instead of strikes
• allow Europe’s other ATCs to operate overflights over France while their unions strike
• protect French overflights (under minimum service obligations) during French ATC strikes

 

Ryanair advised customers due to travel on Tuesday to check the status of their flight on the Ryanair.com website before travelling to the airport, and urged all its customers to sign the A4E “Keep Europe’s Skies Open” petition, which will be presented to the European Commission when it accrues a million signatures.

Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs said:

“President Macron’s Government has announced a major transformation of French labour laws – but it appears nothing changes when it comes to ATC disruption and unions holding Europe to ransom. 2016 was a record year for ATC strikes and French Air Traffic Control unions have announced further strike action this week. As a result, we regret we’ve been forced to cancel 110 flights on Tuesday, 12^th September.

Enough is enough. If the French Government is serious about changing France, they should start by tackling these Air Traffic Control unions, and together with the European Commission, should take immediate action to prevent thousands of European consumers from having their travel plans disrupted by a tiny group of ATC unions going on strike once again. They cannot stand idly by as more disruption and travel misery is inflicted upon Europe’s consumers and airlines.

All of our affected customers have been contacted and informed of their options and we advise all customers travelling on Tuesday to check the status of their flight on the Ryanair.com website before leaving for their airport. We again urge European consumers to sign the A4E online petition, Keep Europe’s Skies Open, (http://www.keepeuropesskiesopen.com/) to help protect Europe from repeated disruption by ATC unions.”

 

Further flight info: https://www.ryanair.com/ie/en/useful-info/help-centre/travel-updates

Ryanair, Europe’s No 1 airline, today (18 Aug) again urged its customers to comply fully with its cabin bag rules, which are being repeatedly flouted, resulting in boarding delays during this peak summer season. Ryanair customers enjoy one of the most generous cabin bag allowances in Europe and may bring one 10kg cabin bag and one smaller bag onboard. However, given Ryanair flights are 97% full this summer, customers have been reminded they must comply with the following bag rules:

Cabin bags – The maximum dimensions for cabin bags are:

• 1 normal cabin bag(55cm x 40cm x 20cm in size and 10kg in weight)
• 1 small bag(handbag, laptop bag, airport shopping bag etc)

Due to overhead locker cabin space limitations, only 90 normal cabin bags (55 x 40 x 20 cms) can be carried in the cabin and any remaining normal cabin bags can be carried free of charge in the aircraft hold. Both carry-on bags must fit in the sizer at the boarding gate and any oversized cabin bags will be refused, or where available, placed in the aircraft hold for a fee of £50/€50.

Priority Boarding:

Customers who purchase Priority Boarding are guaranteed to get their bag on board as they board the aircraft first. Priority Boarding can be added to a booking from just €5. Customers travelling on short 2-4 day breaks who wish to ensure their cabin bag doesn’t go in the hold, are advised to add Priority Boarding.

Check-in bags:

Customers who are travelling on holidays for longer periods and who wish to bring larger than 10kg bags are advised to select checked-in bags and check their luggage into the hold.

Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs said:

“Despite our repeated messaging, some customers are still attempting to bring larger than permitted bags onboard, which are causing delays at the boarding gate. As advised, customers are permitted to bring a normal cabin bag and a smaller bag onboard.

However, many customers are repeatedly exceeding our cabin baggage allowance and we will be left with no choice but to review our policy should this practice continue.

Many of our flights are full given it’s the peak summer period and we urge customers to ensure that they travel with less carry-on bags where possible. Our aircraft can only carry 90 larger carry-on bags and our gate agents are rigorously enforcing our carry-on policy to avoid flight delays and ensure an enjoyable travel experience for all customers. Customers who wish to carry larger baggage are advised to purchase a checked-in bag.”