Ryanair axes 100s of flights for staff hols

Ryanair has announced it will axe up to 50 flights a day to help staff catch up on their holidays.

The no-frills airline said the cancellations would happen over the next six weeks. Yesterday it scrapped 82 flights, and a further 80 scheduled for today. Ryanair said it was necessary to improve its punctuality, which has fallen below 80% in the first two weeks of September. Spokesman Robin Kiely said: “We operated a record schedule during July and August but must now allocate annual leave to pilots and cabin crew in September and October, while still running the bulk of our summer schedule. “This increased leave at a time of ATC capacity delays and strikes has severely reduced our on-time performance over the past two weeks to under 80%. “By cancelling fewer than 2% of our flying programme over the next six weeks we can improve the operational resilience of our schedules and restore punctuality to our annualised target of 90%. “We apologise sincerely to the small number of customers affected by these cancellations, and will be doing our utmost to arrange alternative flights and/ or full refunds for them.” But Fianna Fail tourism spokesperson Robert Troy said: “Passengers weren’t given any warning to allow them make alternative arrangements. “I do feel that Ryanair have failed in their duty of care to their customers.”