Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary apologises to customers and admits flight cancellations are ‘a mess’
RYANAIR boss Michael O'Leary has apologised over the cancellation of 50 flights a day for the next six weeks.
The budget airline released its full list of more than 2,000 cancelled flights this evening.
said it was shelving flights daily after it "messed up" the planning of pilot holidays.
Services from to London Gatwick and Amsterdam, along with flights from Brussels and Manchester to Dublin are among 12 Irish flights cancelled by the under-fire airline today.
And after being door-stepped by Sky News at Ryanair HQ in Dublin, O'Leary said anyone who is "entitled to compensation will receive compensation".
He said: "We sincerely apologise and we are working very hard at the moment to make sure we finalise the list of flight cancellations which will effect less than two per cent of our customers and also look after those customers who have been disrupted.
"Everyone who is entitled to compensation will receive compensation."
Asked if it was a "mess", he added: "It is clearly a mess but in the context of an operation where we operate more than 2,500 flights a day it is reasonably small."
He continued: "That doesn't take away in any way the inconvenience of it to those people whose flights have been cancelled."
O'Leary has predicted that the compensation bill will be around £17.7million, but Martin Lewis from moneysavingexpert.com reckons it could be far more because of a tarnished reputation.
He told that the blunder could be a "Ratner moment for Ryanair" - much like when the jeweller Gerald Gerald made the huge mistake of describing some of his company's products as "total crap."
Ireland's Commission for Aviation Regulation said: "If cancels a flight, it must offer you the choice of an alternative flight at the earliest opportunity or at a later date of your choice subject to the availability of seats or a full refund of the ticket."
The commission, which has responsibility for scheduling at Irish airports, is due to meet to discuss the situation.
