Ryanair will publish a full list of flights cancelled tonight – with up to 50 flights a day axed over next six weeks
Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has confirmed all customers whose flights are disrupted before the end of October will receive an email by tonight
RYANAIR has promised to publish tonight a full list of the flights it is cancelling over the next six weeks.
Ryanair customers were left fuming because its staff need to catch up on holidays.
Michael O'Leary has confirmed all customers affected by the flight cancellations up until the end of October will receive an email by this evening and the list will also be published on the Ryanair website.
When questioned on why the airline still appeared to be selling tickets for flights set to be cancelled, O'Leary said it was due to planned flight cancellations only being finalised "25 minutes" before their Dublin press conference.
He added that all flights affected would be fully removed from sale on the Ryanair site.
O'Leary said this afternoon: "On Friday we took a decision to cancel up to 50 flights a day over the next six weeks.
"This is due to us messing up holidays in September and October following a busy summer schedule.
"We delayed publishing the full list to focus on our busiest routes to ensure passengers on these flights were prioritised."
He continued: "98 per cent of our flights and 98 per cent of our customers are not affected.
"These cancellations protect the 98 per cent. We will offer alternative flights to passengers affected.
"Full refunds will be offered to passengers who are not willing to accept the alternative flight.
"We made a mess and Ryanair holds our hands up when we make a mess.
"I'd like to apologise and say sorry for the short notice due to not having stand by crews."
He added: "This issue will not recur in 2018 as Ryanair goes back onto a 12-month calendar leave. Ryanair is not short of pilots - we were able to fully crew our peak summer schedule."
It’s estimated at up to 9,000 people a day and 285,000 journeys in total are likely to be hit by the airline’s move.
The airline had come under pressure to over the next six weeks – but by this morning had .
Ryanair blamed the cancellations on a combination of rota woes, ATC capacity delays and strikes, weather disruptions and bad punctuality performance in September.
The impact of increased holiday allocations to pilots and cabin crew came as the airline moves to allocate annual leave during a nine-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 January 1, 2018 onwards.
