On Sunday in Charleroi Airport (Belgium) a number of FR flights were cancelled. FR said it was due to weather in Belgium and Italy but apparently Charleroi Airport authorities said that it was due to lack of pilots as pilots have left FR (in French):

http://www.lesoir.be/113451/article/201 ... e-dimanche

This week there were French ATC strikes (this happens quite often) and this affects CRL (which is right across the border from France). However French and Belgian media is saying that most of those cancellations (110 on Tuesday) are not linked in any way to the strike. And FR just used this as a cover up. Yesterday there were further cancelations not linked to this strike.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-eco/2017/0 ... s-vols.php

http://fr.newsmonkey.be/article/19988

Business Insider Nordic published this article last week, about FR pilots moving to DY

http://nordic.businessinsider.com/norwe ... us-2017-9/

Norwegian has said that Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary’s recent attack happened because large amounts of pilots have left his company to work for Norwegian instead.

O’Leary caused a major stir when he, in a meeting with journalists last week, said that Norwegian is going bankrupt in a matter of months. “They are running out of cash. They are scrabbling around daily,” O'Leary said, while also predicting a similar fate for Monarch, another low-cost airline.

Norwegian first rejected the news as “nonsense”, and has now followed up with an explanation on why it thinks O’Leary was so worked up: Norwegian is mass recruiting pilots for its global expansion, and many of them come from Ryanair.

“I can confirm that we’ve hired almost 140 Ryanair pilots so far this year. With us, they gain permanent employment [..] and get a competitive salary,” said Charlotte Holmbergh Jacobsson, Head of Communications, to Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet.

This would mean that roughly a third of Norwegian’s hires this year have come from the Irish low-cost competitor. And there could be more: Norwegian aims to add 500 pilots this year, and establish a base in Dublin, Ryanair’s home.

Even though O'Leary's is known for making controversial comments, Norwegian's stock went down on the same day - giving rise to speculations about the low-cost carrier's financial health.

“No there is absolutely no truth in what he says, it’s nonsense. Norwegian is a stable, publicly listed company that has been profitable for the last ten years, and we will continue with our global expansion plans. There are no signs indicating that we wouldn’t be able to make it,” says Holmbergh Jacobsson.

It will be interesting to see how this develops... ! How will Ryanair continue growing if they cannot find pilots?

This is what happens when you pay pilots with minimum wages, use third party labour company to be rid of as much benefits as you can, etc. Sometimes pilots even have to pay for their type ratings, so guess what happens to their pilot sources.

Well, at least that's what I've read here... But I do believe that's what exactly happened to Ryanair, and it may just be the beginning.

Michael

SCQ83 wrote:

How will Ryanair continue growing if they cannot find pilots?

I'm sure they can, it just takes time. A good number of them has recently left to work for other airlines and of course that's got it's impact on operations. They will be replaced by others, but those others first have to be found and trained.

eamondzhang wrote:

This is what happens when you pay pilots with minimum wages, use third party labour company to be rid of as much benefits as you can, etc. Sometimes pilots even have to pay for their type ratings, so guess what happens to their pilot sources.

On the other hand, if you want to be a low cost airline, those salaries of 100.000 euros a year for pilots are a no-no. It´s a delicate balance.

Anyone remember when MOL said he woul'nt need two pilots in future and would train the FA's to land in an emergency if the one pilot was incapacitated?

Have at it Micheal.

jmmadrid wrote:

eamondzhang wrote:

This is what happens when you pay pilots with minimum wages, use third party labour company to be rid of as much benefits as you can, etc. Sometimes pilots even have to pay for their type ratings, so guess what happens to their pilot sources.

On the other hand, if you want to be a low cost airline, those salaries of 100.000 euros a year for pilots are a no-no. It´s a delicate balance.

True but some other LCCs managed well with high-rank pilots, namely Jetstar. I guess that may be a different story though.

Michael

jmmadrid wrote:

eamondzhang wrote:

This is what happens when you pay pilots with minimum wages, use third party labour company to be rid of as much benefits as you can, etc. Sometimes pilots even have to pay for their type ratings, so guess what happens to their pilot sources.

On the other hand, if you want to be a low cost airline, those salaries of 100.000 euros a year for pilots are a no-no. It´s a delicate balance.

I can tell you - they have no chance if they DON'T pay market rates

worldranger wrote:

Anyone remember when MOL said he woul'nt need two pilots in future and would train the FA's to land in an emergency if the one pilot was incapacitated?

Have at it Micheal.

He actually said that????????

There are lots of pilots out there, you have to pay them the going rate, or they go to another airline.

[quote="eamondzhang"]This is what happens when you pay pilots with minimum wages, use third party labour company to be rid of as much benefits as you can, etc. Sometimes pilots even have to pay for their type ratings, so guess what happens to their pilot sources.


I know for a fact that pilots who have gotten their type rating elsewhere i.e. CAE will have to buy another type rating from Ryanair in order to get the job. I'm not quite sure how this is even legal; to demand that a "qualified" applicant will have to get double qualified to start working for you. But I'm sure FR will just claim it is solely to have their pilots trained to their procedures. (That's what you have "procedure trainer" and paper tigers for)

And that it has nothing to do with the fact that squeezing their pilots for monies for type rating is big business for them.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

SCQ83 wrote:

How will Ryanair continue growing if they cannot find pilots?

I'm sure they can, it just takes time. A good number of them has recently left to work for other airlines and of course that's got it's impact on operations. They will be replaced by others, but those others first have to be found and trained.

Sure they will replace them. But first of all they need to find the trainers. Their training department lost a lot of expierenced guys.

126 million people flew FR in the last 12 months and they now have 403 738s. They have also announced dozens of new routes in the past week. It seems a little suspect that this 'problem' appeared to surface in such a controlled manner - and that French media said it wasn't the French to blame. Anyway, we'll see what comes from it.

jmmadrid wrote:

eamondzhang wrote:

This is what happens when you pay pilots with minimum wages, use third party labour company to be rid of as much benefits as you can, etc. Sometimes pilots even have to pay for their type ratings, so guess what happens to their pilot sources.

On the other hand, if you want to be a low cost airline, those salaries of 100.000 euros a year for pilots are a no-no. It´s a delicate balance.

Ryanair is anything but a minimum wage airline for the pilots. The salaries are pretty good (better than most other airlines that hire low-timers), and they have captains that make well over 100.000 eur a year. I know for a fact that some first-year FOs earn up to 100.000 eur a year if they land in a good base. You do have to pay some 27.000 eur for the rating when joining the company, at least as a First Officer. On the other hand, they have a massive waiting list of pilots waiting to join them and pay for the rating.

IMHO, the problem they have is that other airlines are giving even better offers for Ryanair crews, especially experienced pilots. I know a ton of former Ryanair FOs who went to Norwegian to fly the 787 recently. Norwegian has also started its own pay-2-fly/pay for your own rating program, which probably sucks a lot of candidates from Ryanairs program.

The best offer a pilot can get is to be close to friends and family. Ryanair simply can't give offers to everyone to be based near friends and family. They will naturally have high staff turnover.
I'd expect that a many pilots would take a small pay cut for better work/life balance.
Prime example: If you aren't from Lithuania why would you want to be be based in Kaunas. That is where Ryanair sends their pilots when they misbehave.

Ryanair, US3 running out of pilots: They'll survive, this is just a fluke, they excel in other areas blah blah blah
Norwegian, ME3 running out of pilots or getting creative: OMG they are awful illegal companies that need to go out of business!!! How dare they exist!!!

You people, I tell ya.

leghorn wrote:

The best offer a pilot can get is to be close to friends and family. Ryanair simply can't give offers to everyone to be based near friends and family. They will naturally have high staff turnover.
I'd expect that a many pilots would take a small pay cut for better work/life balance.
Prime example: If you aren't from Lithuania why would you want to be be based in Kaunas. That is where Ryanair sends their pilots when they misbehave.

I assume this also works the other way around. If you are a pilot from Kaunas and you want to live close to friends and family, which carrier other than Ryanair you can work at? Not all pilots in Europe were born in Frankfurt, London, Paris or Amsterdam.

SCQ83 wrote:

On Sunday in Charleroi Airport (Belgium) a number of FR flights were cancelled. FR said it was due to weather in Belgium and Italy but apparently Charleroi Airport authorities said that it was due to lack of pilots as pilots have left FR (in French):

http://www.lesoir.be/113451/article/201 ... e-dimanche

This week there were French ATC strikes (this happens quite often) and this affects CRL (which is right across the border from France). However French and Belgian media is saying that most of those cancellations (110 on Tuesday) are not linked in any way to the strike. And FR just used this as a cover up. Yesterday there were further cancelations not linked to this strike.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-eco/2017/0 ... s-vols.php

http://fr.newsmonkey.be/article/19988

Business Insider Nordic published this article last week, about FR pilots moving to DY

http://nordic.businessinsider.com/norwe ... us-2017-9/

Norwegian has said that Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary’s recent attack happened because large amounts of pilots have left his company to work for Norwegian instead.

O’Leary caused a major stir when he, in a meeting with journalists last week, said that Norwegian is going bankrupt in a matter of months. “They are running out of cash. They are scrabbling around daily,” O'Leary said, while also predicting a similar fate for Monarch, another low-cost airline.

Norwegian first rejected the news as “nonsense”, and has now followed up with an explanation on why it thinks O’Leary was so worked up: Norwegian is mass recruiting pilots for its global expansion, and many of them come from Ryanair.

“I can confirm that we’ve hired almost 140 Ryanair pilots so far this year. With us, they gain permanent employment [..] and get a competitive salary,” said Charlotte Holmbergh Jacobsson, Head of Communications, to Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet.

This would mean that roughly a third of Norwegian’s hires this year have come from the Irish low-cost competitor. And there could be more: Norwegian aims to add 500 pilots this year, and establish a base in Dublin, Ryanair’s home.

Even though O'Leary's is known for making controversial comments, Norwegian's stock went down on the same day - giving rise to speculations about the low-cost carrier's financial health.

“No there is absolutely no truth in what he says, it’s nonsense. Norwegian is a stable, publicly listed company that has been profitable for the last ten years, and we will continue with our global expansion plans. There are no signs indicating that we wouldn’t be able to make it,” says Holmbergh Jacobsson.

It will be interesting to see how this develops... ! How will Ryanair continue growing if they cannot find pilots?

Interesting. Many Ryanair pilots have historically had challenges by being self employed with the airline, so the airline has no responsibility for holiday pay, sickness benefits, and only paid the pilots for hours actually flown - you can suddenly see why Norwegian would have some appeal to them. Today it was announced that Ryanair stock fell by over 4% before recovering slightly as a result of them loosing a European court action brought by crew. http://www.independent.ie/business/iris ... 31288.html

This is on the back of investigations relating to German based Ryanair pilots: https://www.irishtimes.com/business/tra ... -1.2792724

Ryanair shares often lose more than 4% on general market jitters unrelated to the business.
It is a heavily traded stock that is in many fund portfolios.

Super80Fan wrote:

Ryanair, US3 running out of pilots: They'll survive, this is just a fluke, they excel in other areas blah blah blah
Norwegian, ME3 running out of pilots or getting creative: OMG they are awful illegal companies that need to go out of business!!! How dare they exist!!!

You people, I tell ya.

I see your point but the US3 aren't running out of pilots. The lifetime earnings gap between US3+FedEx is pretty large to second tier carriers, and the gap is huge between US3 and regionals. They can get all the pilots they want. (Indoc training and type cascades are different issues.)

Ryanair may be testing the market. It's a global market but not a particularly free market.

There are lot of people that wants to be pilots. It's not about pay. Its about most can't afford it and most are not qualified.

Galwayman wrote:

There's obviously an issue with Norwegian recruiting pilots and crew from FR esp at the new Dublin base

MOL is very clever , he'll find a way to deal with it and Norwegians financials are really poor , so all those people may have to come back to FR at the end of the day anyway

Could it be that Norwegian is doing this to get back at Michael O'Leary for saying Norwegian would be bankrupt in a few months? Of course Norwegian doesn't take that from Ryanair, so to take revenge they're now stealing their pilots.

It's true that Norwegians results aren't the best in the world, but they're not dead yet and so far they're still growing.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Galwayman wrote:

There's obviously an issue with Norwegian recruiting pilots and crew from FR esp at the new Dublin base

MOL is very clever , he'll find a way to deal with it and Norwegians financials are really poor , so all those people may have to come back to FR at the end of the day anyway

Could it be that Norwegian is doing this to get back at Michael O'Leary for saying Norwegian would be bankrupt in a few months? Of course Norwegian doesn't take that from Ryanair, so to take revenge they're now stealing their pilots.

It's true that Norwegians results aren't the best in the world, but they're not dead yet and so far they're still growing.

It was Norwegian's hiring of his pilots that led to that recent rant. Add in Norwegian and Easyjet getting closer and you got Eazyjet thrown in the latest MOL rant as well. Norwegian has lots of planes on the way and Ireland along with that Irish certificate would be a good place to put them if they can't lease those ABs with the reheaded stepchild engines as Gatwick further reaches capacity. Even if it's full little or the same money, TATL routes have to be better than constant Dublin to London runs

Ryanair, today (15th Sept) announced that it would cancel 40-50 flights daily for the next six weeks (to the end of October) to improve its system-wide punctuality which has fallen below 80% in the first two weeks of September through a combination of ATC capacity delays and strikes, weather disruptions and the impact of increased holiday allocations to pilots and cabin crew as the airline moves to allocate annual leave during a 9 month transition period (April to December 2017) to move the airline’s holiday year (currently April to March) to a calendar year (Jan to Dec) from 1st January 2018 onwards.

Ryanair has operated at record schedule and traffic levels during the peak summer months of July (12.6m guests) and August (12.7m guests) but has a backlog of crew leave which must be allocated before 31st Dec 2017 in order to switch to a calendar leave year (as required by the IAA) from 1st Jan 2018 onwards.

These tighter crewing numbers and the impact of ATC capacity restrictions in the UK, Germany and Spain, as well as French ATC strikes and adverse weather (thunderstorms) have given rise to significant delays in recent weeks. Ryanair’s on-time performance has declined from 90% to under 80% over the past two weeks, a figure that is unacceptable to Ryanair and its customers.

By reducing its scheduled flying programme over the next six weeks by less than 2% (of its over 2,500 daily flights), the airline will create additional standby aircraft which will help restore on-time performance to its 90% average. Ryanair apologises sincerely for the inconvenience caused to customers by these cancellations. Customers will be contacted directly about this small number of cancellations and offered alternative flights or full refunds.

http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/ryana ... nctuality/

Pe@rson wrote:

Customers will be contacted directly about this small number of cancellations...

Now that is corporate talk at its finest.
Well done Ryanair!

How does FR plan on getting all those passengers from 110 cancelled flights to their destinations? Other airlines? Just strand them and let them fend for themselves?

jumbojet wrote:

How does FR plan on getting all those passengers from 110 cancelled flights to their destinations? Other airlines? Just strand them and let them fend for themselves?

Seats on the next available flight or a full refund.

I like this FR/Norwegian battle.

So Will FR just announce a batch of flights to be canceled every few days during this period? If so, then why would you risk booking a Ryanair flight? It'd be like playing Russian roulette!

EI202 wrote:

So Will FR just announce a batch of flights to be canceled every few days during this period? If so, then why would you risk booking a Ryanair flight? It'd be like playing Russian roulette!

What if you are going to visit your in laws?

32andBelow wrote:

EI202 wrote:

So Will FR just announce a batch of flights to be canceled every few days during this period? If so, then why would you risk booking a Ryanair flight? It'd be like playing Russian roulette!

What if you are going to visit your in laws?

You'd definitely take the risk then!

Nice to see the truth come out on this one, it's been building since early August and the upcoming shortages were talk of the company internally. Norwegian may have been on to something with their comments.

In typical Ryanair style they point the blame at everyone but themselves, it's all down to weather, air traffic restrictions, French strikes and the IAA but never Ryanair's own screw up. Reading between the lines and past the spin of their press release it's an obvious admission they've messed up and need to recover their schedules but now we'll have to wait and see how they handle the refunds, complaints and arranging alternative travel for disrupted passengers.

Good luck to Ryanair's customer service team!

Pe@rson wrote:

Ryanair, today (15th Sept) announced that it would cancel 40-50 flights daily for the next six weeks

. . . . . .

Customers will be contacted directly about this small number of cancellations and offered alternative flights or full refunds.

http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/ryana ... nctuality/

So what is missing?

I noticed that Ryanair does not tell anything about with what notice customers will be contacted about cancellation of their flight. One month? One day? Or one hour ahead of their scheduled flight?

This is probably the most important information for any potential Ryanair customer these days. Why don't they give even the slightest hint?

jumbojet wrote:

How does FR plan on getting all those passengers from 110 cancelled flights to their destinations? Other airlines? Just strand them and let them fend for themselves?

That's the Ryanair way. This article https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland ... ews_digest is hilarious when you think about it - management of a business reliant upon good scheduling find it impossible to schedule pilot & FA leave without cancelling flights at the rate of 50 per day for a month and-a-half...

Ryanair is being nasty

Up to 50 flights per day (less than 2% of flights) have been cancelled for the next six weeks. Your flight is operating as usual unless you receive an email.

I doubt it is only 2%, hence that secret way.

For instance, in Flighstats (departures) just looking at some random airports today...

STN: 12 cancelled (MAD, LNZ, NYO, AAL, PSA, DNR, BOD, AAR, CPH, CCF, NCE, NYO)

BGY: 6 cancelled (BVA, BDS, NUE, BOD, OMR, PMO)
DUB: 6 cancelled (BCN, BVA, MAD, AMS, EDI, LGW)

BRU: 2 cancelled (LIS, SXF)
CRL: 2 cancelled (VNO, TPS)
MAN: 2 cancelled (ALC, FAO)
OPO: 2 cancelled (LIS, LRT)

Those make already 32 flights, plus the returns already 64... and that is a very small number of airports. = FR lying.

prebennorholm wrote:

Pe@rson wrote:

Ryanair, today (15th Sept) announced that it would cancel 40-50 flights daily for the next six weeks

. . . . . .

Customers will be contacted directly about this small number of cancellations and offered alternative flights or full refunds.

http://corporate.ryanair.com/news/ryana ... nctuality/

So what is missing?

I noticed that Ryanair does not tell anything about with what notice customers will be contacted about cancellation of their flight. One month? One day? Or one hour ahead of their scheduled flight?

This is probably the most important information for any potential Ryanair customer these days. Why don't they give even the slightest hint?

It seems like very short notice.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41291483

"Gary Cummings was due to fly from Leeds to Bratislava on Friday morning.
On Thursday night he received a text message from Ryanair, saying his flight had been cancelled.
The only alternative flight he was offered was on Monday - when he was originally due to be returning to Leeds. "

Confirmation, if any was needed that Ryanair are a cowboy outfit who care not a damn about their passengers. Its one thing cancelling flights with multiple daily departures but what do you do when the next flight is 3 days away ?!

No pilot shortage if they buy AZ.

So much for 40-50 flights per day being cancelled - there are around 80 cancellations today.

https://www.cloud.scorebuddy.co.uk/ryan ... 2017-09-16

hibtastic wrote:

So much for 40-50 flights per day being cancelled - there are around 80 cancellations today.

https://www.cloud.scorebuddy.co.uk/ryan ... 2017-09-16

I think the list is not complete.

If you see for instance the flights I put above, STN has more cancelled flights according to Flighstats.

The communication is certainly lacking in honesty.

If they put out a big press release announcing 2% of flights cancelled over 6 weeks, the least they could do is cancel the flights asap to allow passengers to figure out alternatives.

Depending on how this plays out over the next days, I am not sure I will be trusting Ryanair with new bookings before the end of October.

From BBC Business


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.
Ryanair said that less than 2% of its flights would be cancelled and the move would help it hit its annual punctuality target of 90%.
But passengers have complained about the short notice of the cancellations.

A real PR coup for Mr O'Dreary

LTenEleven wrote:

If they put out a big press release announcing 2% of flights cancelled over 6 weeks, the least they could do is cancel the flights asap to allow passengers to figure out alternatives.

.

Pretty much what most people are saying. To give such short notice and failure to release a comprehensive list is very bad. There should be an investigation by the authorities and fines imposed with compensation being offered. This is a mess up on a huge scale.

One of the worst self-inflected PR jobs this year. Twitter has lots of people stranded at airports, many can get no information at desks or telephone lines go unanswered.

Say HELLO! to one of the victims.

My flight from MAD to Lanzarote was supposed to leave tomorrow (Sunday) at 6:45am. When I tried to check in this morning, I was informed that the flight is cancelled and offered me a refund or the opportunity to change the flight for Monday evening at no extra charge. Reluctantly, I changed my flight to Monday, axing by two days my four-day holidays. I'm still not sure if I'll go because there's no guarantee that my return flight on Wednesday will not be cancelled as well and I do not want to be stranded there without Ryanair's suppport.

By the way, I still haven't been formally notified of the cancellation by Ryanair, and if you look at their website, there are "no cancellations planned for tomorrow September 17".

According to EU regulations, I'm entitled to a 400 euro compensation. To have an idea of the size of the problem, multiply 400 x 170 passengers=68,000 euros and that's just a one way flight.

They should be forced to publish the list of cancelled flights ASAP. Amazing that they apparently don't know until just before the flights that they won't run. And as jmmadrid says, you'd be reluctant to take an outward flight not knowing if your return will go ahead as planned.

I'm now seriously considering my flight in October as I'd hate to be stranded for 5 days at the mother in law's when I need to be back at work!

People who fly Ryanair deserve to be stranded at the airport for life. I once went to their Facebook page and, as expected, there are hundreds if not thousands of complaints. 99% of them start with "I knew Ryanair was [insert the expletive] but I bought a ticket to...". WHY THE HELL did you buy a ticket if you knew it was [insert the expletive] in the first place! I agree, authorities should investigate and issue full yearly salary fines onto anyone who bought a Ryanair ticket.

That's what you get unfortunately for flying Ryanair, while I feel bad it's a joke of an operation so stuff like this is bound to happen.

BREECH wrote:

People who fly Ryanair deserve to be stranded at the airport for life. I once went to their Facebook page and, as expected, there are hundreds if not thousands of complaints. 99% of them start with "I knew Ryanair was [insert the expletive] but I bought a ticket to...". WHY THE HELL did you buy a ticket if you knew it was [insert the expletive] in the first place! I agree, authorities should investigate and issue full yearly salary fines onto anyone who bought a Ryanair ticket.

I've flown Ryanair before quite often and so far it has always been good. Convenient schedule and low prices, what more do you want? I always compare to other airlines but they're mostly more expensive or less convenient, or both. Reason enough to fly them I would say.

However, with their current number of canceled flights and worsened hand luggage policy I certainly won't book with them. Ryanair has gone from good to bad in a very short amount of time. What happened to "always getting better"? Their schedule is still convenient, but what good is a convenient schedule if you can't be sure if your flight will go or not?

They say they're doing this to avoid delays, but I'd rather see my flight delayed than canceled.

jmmadrid wrote:

Say HELLO! to one of the victims.

My flight from MAD to Lanzarote was supposed to leave tomorrow (Sunday) at 6:45am. When I tried to check in this morning, I was informed that the flight is cancelled and offered me a refund or the opportunity to change the flight for Monday evening at no extra charge. Reluctantly, I changed my flight to Monday, axing by two days my four-day holidays. I'm still not sure if I'll go because there's no guarantee that my return flight on Wednesday will not be cancelled as well and I do not want to be stranded there without Ryanair's suppport.

By the way, I still haven't been formally notified of the cancellation by Ryanair, and if you look at their website, there are "no cancellations planned for tomorrow September 17".

According to EU regulations, I'm entitled to a 400 euro compensation. To have an idea of the size of the problem, multiply 400 x 170 passengers=68,000 euros and that's just a one way flight.

Feel very sorry for you.
The EU rules are clear, if the airline doesn't have a suitable alternative flight, you have to be booked on a rival airline.
This not not much help if you can not contact Ryanair. Keep a record of events and then go after them 1000% at a later date.
Check with your travel insurance company, if you have some.

jmmadrid wrote:

According to EU regulations, I'm entitled to a 400 euro compensation. To have an idea of the size of the problem, multiply 400 x 170 passengers=68,000 euros and that's just a one way flight.

On top of that you have the right to arrive at your destination within hours of the scheduled time. Those times are part of your transportation contract and if Ryanair doesn't offer you a suitable alternative, you can book one yourself and charge that to Ryanair.

While it can be tedious to make FR pay yourself, the legal situation is so darn clear that companies like flightright get you your money for a small fee. Also bailiffs around here have no problem chaining up a 737 to get you much smaller amounts back. As FR probably learned when a disgruntled customer when all the way over FRs refusal to pay back taxes and fees after he was a no-show.

Keep a Screenshot of some flight seach site to show that you did book the cheapest suitable alternative..but you are entitled to 400 euro AND a flight that takes you where you want to go around the time you have booked. If other airlines could react that fast, they would only offer full fare on those dates and destinations.

Super80Fan wrote:

That's what you get unfortunately for flying Ryanair, while I feel bad it's a joke of an operation so stuff like this is bound to happen.

Other airlines have cancellations too, and FR usually is above average on time. If every canx pax charges them what they deserve to pay, they'll learn. Passenger rights wise the EU is just about the best place you can be in.

Best regards
Thomas