Ryanair power on wane as flights crisis blows up in O’Leary’s face
I’ M turning the big 4 0 this Saturday and to mark the occasion I booked myself a Ryanair flight. The booking of the flight was in the halcyon days of when, you know, you booked a flight and the airplane flew to the chosen destination.
The big birthday getaway is something I planned fairly last minute. The idea being that a few friends and I would jet off somewhere on the cheap and have a lads weekend of boozing and hanging around, (more the latter probably), in a foreign cheap city.
Munich was the original plan as my birthday coincides with Oktoberfest, but prices were through the roof so we settled on Berlin.
The thought never entered our heads at the time that we would be facing into nights of cold sweat ‘Ryanair Roulette’ dread because of Michael O’Leary and the shower at Ryanair who have left thousands of customers low and dry; grounded, literally, in airports, waiting for word of when airline staff are back from holidays long enough to get them home or to their destination.
Flying and travel, in general, is stressful enough. There is always the risk of a French air traffic control strike or sitting next to someone smelly. I got caught up in the former scenario before and ended up being put up in a four star hotel in Barcelona - all courtesy of Aer Lingus, an excellent airline.
The problem with the latest de facto air strike involving Ryanair planes is that it is down to sheer incompetence, incompetence which has ruined people’s holidays, split up wedding parties, destroyed the chance for people to attend funerals etc.
How did the powers that be and Mr O’Leary not see this coming down the runway? The company must offer compensation or alternative flights to passengers, but how do you put a value on the stress parents must endure who are stranded abroad with children?
The airline - whose meanness has been the butt of many jokes down the years including ones about paying for toilet paper (untrue I should add) - is in freefall.
So far in 2017 Ryanair has lost 140 pilots to Norwegian Air. As the airline battles to fill positions, it is understood that Ryanair has commenced offering pilots a €10,000 ‘signing-on bonus’, according to the Irish Independent. The airline has blamed a number of factors including changes to staff rosters and air traffic control strikes for the cancellation of dozens of flights for the next six weeks. At Dublin airport on Monday a dozen Ryanair flights in or out of the airport had been cancelled, something which is being replicated in airports around Europe.
The company’s share price has dropped almost 3pc to 16.56. In total just under 400,000 passengers across Europe could be affected by the cancellations in the coming days and weeks. Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs said: ‘We will cancel 40 to 50 flights daily for the next six weeks, (less than 2pc of our schedule) with a slightly higher number this weekend as we begin to implement these cancellations.’
Brilliant!
The Looby party getaway remains under threat, hanging by a fingernail. Will we be winging it somewhere else? Gdansk maybe? Gothenburg sounds great? Lisbon? Who knows. Ryaniar probably doesn’t even know! Time will tell and I will tell you, dear readers, as soon as I get back, if I get anywhere! One thing’s for sure, I, along with thousands of others, will be armed with my rights when I head for the airport departure gates.