Airline’s CEO admits mistakes amid crisis of cancellations
LONDON — Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has admitted mistakes to disgruntled shareholders as the airline struggles to overcome a scheduling crisis that is costing the company millions of euros.
Speaking on Sept. 21 at Ryanair’s annual general meeting, O’Leary said he planned to force pilots to give up a week of vacation time this year to prevent further flight cancellations. Pilots will be told that the airline will “make it up to you.”
“We make mistakes,” he said. “This time we made a major boo boo.”
Ryanair, a no-frills airline based in Dublin that is Europe’s biggest carrier by number of passengers, is cancelling 2,100 flights over the next six weeks because it “messed up” the allocation of annual leave as it shifts to a new holiday scheduling system.
Compensation for passengers forced to re-book could reach $30 million. Passengers, meanwhile, are reporting problems in gaining compensation, inundating the firm’s Facebook page with complaints.
O’Leary’s statement comes amid reports that flight captains and first officers have rejected Ryanair’s offer of bonus payments in exchange for taking on more hours.
The Guardian newspaper also reported that Ryanair pilots are trying to organize a protest under which they would refuse to do any work beyond what is required by their contracts, which would cause more scheduling headaches for the airline.
O’Leary later insisted there were no problems between the company and the pilots and that if they misbehave “that will be the end of the goodies.”
“I don’t even know how there would be industrial action in Ryanair,” he said. “There isn’t a union.”
The Irish Air Line Pilots’ Association says the real problem is that Ryanair failed to plan for the implementation of new European safety regulations that take effect Jan. 1 and require all airlines to use a regular calendar year for calculating pilot flight hours and working days.
Until now, Ryanair has used a 12-month period beginning April 1, which gave it a competitive advantage in scheduling pilots during the busy summer season because hours accumulated from January to March didn’t carry over into the new scheduling year, the IALPA said in a statement.
UK aviation regulator may take action
LONDON — Ryanair says it will meet with Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority after the agency threatened to take enforcement action against the budget carrier for what it described as persistently misleading passengers about flight cancellations.
The airline said Thursday it would “fully comply” with whatever requirements the CAA imposes.
The CAA warning issued Wednesday came after Ryanair scrapped 18,000 more flights in a second round of cancellations after the airline “messed up” the scheduling of pilot vacations.