It looks like O’Leary has changed his tune...

Ryanair boss apologies to staff for flights fiasco

AN uncharacteristically contrite Michael O’Leary apologised to staff yesterday for the pain inflicted upon them by the widespread cancellations in recent days.

A day after he had accused some Ryanair pilots of being ‘precious’ about themselves and suggested he could force them to give up a week’s holidays against their will, Mr O’Leary took a surprisingly conciliatory tone in an internal message to staff.

Directly addressing the pilots, cabin crew, check-in and customer services representatives, Mr O’Leary is reported to have said ‘I want to apologise to you’.

The airline chief also thanked those pilots who had agreed to come in on their days off.

Offering an explanation for the massive scheduling mess that has seen 315,000 customers’ flights cancelled, the Ryanair boss said the company didn’t understand that their ‘rostering numbers were low’ and said the allocation of the block of four weeks leave to employees across the next six weeks had been ‘mismanaged’.

Mr O’Leary reportedly explained that it eventually became ‘clear’ they did not have enough pilots to cover, and said they are recruiting more.

‘We had over 100 pilots awaiting base training. We will have cleared that backlog of about 125 pilots by Monday or Tuesday next week. I want to say personally, to each and every one of you who work in Ryanair, I’m sorry for the mess that we have created over the past week.’

In a bid to entice pilots back from their holidays, a bonus package of up to €12,000 was offered but this has been rejected by pilots in as many as 55 bases around Europe, and has been countered with demands for improved contracts and working conditions.

This sweetheart deal also offered a number of pilots in four busy bases, including Dublin, a €10,000 annual pay rise in a bid to alleviate the staff shortages.

The turmoil for the company began last Friday when Mr O’Leary announced as many as 2,100 flights would be cancelled over a six-week period until the end of next month in a bid to accommodate staff holidays.

They initially said this would only affect 2% of customers, but there was widespread panic as the full list of cancelled flights was not made available until Monday.

Ryanair says about 95% of the 315,000 affected customers have by now been allocated an alternative flight or given refunds.

The Commission for Aviation Regulation released a statement yesterday, stating that the company has said ‘all passengers that had their flights cancelled up to October 28 were notified on or before Monday, September 18 and that any cancellation after October 2 will not qualify for compensation’.

The Commision said: ‘Any cancellation between September 10 and October 2, including those which were cancelled due to Ryanair’s scheduling issue, will be entitled compensation.

‘Ryanair has assessed all the impacted flights within the 14 days and has identified all passengers who qualify for compensation. Ryanair has said that on September 10 and September 12 there were some cancellations due to thunderstorms in Italy and the French ATC strike.

‘Ryanair has stated these passengers will not be entitled to compensation as these issues were outside of Ryanair’s control. All other flights within the 14 days are entitled to full compensation.’

Mr O’Leary had initially said the company would not pay for passengers who needed to rebook with other airlines, as they were offering them a refund or an alternative flight the day they were due to fly, or the day before or after. But yesterday the company confirmed they would if necessary.

A spokesman told the Mail: ‘Given we have already re-accommodated 75% of our affected customers and given the size of our network, it’s unlikely we will need to, but will do so if necessary.’

Mr O’Leary has denied the company is facing a shortage of pilots. However, the ‘mess up’ with the rosters for September and October means they are running rosters with just 30 to 40 pilots on standby when this is normally done with up to 150.

And last night, reports began to emerge that cabin crew staff in Britain’s East Midlands airport had been told that due to a winter reduction in aircraft, they could opt for six weeks secondment to bases across mainland Europe or take a period of unpaid leave.

Brenda Power – Page 17 emmajane.hade@dailymail.ie