Ryanair looks to Brazil in its hunt for more pilots as flights fiasco worsens

RYANAIR has been forced to scour Brazil in its efforts to recruit pilots as it struggles to maintain its schedule amid a deepening flights fiasco, the Irish Independent has learned.

A sharp fall in the airline’s share price since last Thursday has seen almost €60m wiped off the value of billionaire Michael O’Leary’s shares in the company. But as the flight cancellation chaos continues, the Ryanair boss insisted he would stay with the airline.

“I don’t think my head should roll,” said Mr O’Leary, while admitting the cancellations were a “cock-up”.

“It is my mess-up,” the airline chief said, acknowledging that Ryanair had suffered reputational damage over the past number of days. But he added: “I need to stay here and fix this.”

Hundreds of thousands of passengers continue to be affected by flight cancellations, and will be for weeks to come.

Yesterday the Irish Independent revealed that the airline had this year lost 140 pilots to Norwegian Air, as passengers continue to be affected by the budget airline’s plans to scrap around 50 flights a day until the end of October. Mr O’Leary said Ryanair had enough pilots to operate its schedule.

Ryanair held recruitment days for captains in both Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo last month, while it is also understood to be holding roadshows in Germany and Italy to lure staff from failed carriers Air Berlin and Alitalia. Ryanair is also preparing a bid to buy at least part of Alitalia.

It is understood Ryanair also tried to recruit pilots in Dubai earlier this year. However, it is believed that turnout at the Dubai and Brazil events was low.

“We have no difficulty in getting captains,” Mr O’Leary claimed, adding that Ryanair had a “waiting list” of 2,500 pilots waiting to join the carrier.

Mr O’Leary also said that Ryanair “did not agree” with the figure of 140 pilots lost to Norwegian Air – but Norwegian confirmed the figure to the Irish Independent this week.

He also said that Ryanair needed to have between 100 and 150 pilots on standby on any given day, but that it currently can only muster between 30 and 40.

Shore

“That’s not enough,” admitted Mr O’Leary, who said that as of yet, leave had not been cancelled for Ryanair pilots in order to shore up the schedule.

With Ryanair continuing to cancel flights, Mr O’Leary is certain to face a barrage of criticism at the airline’s annual general meeting in Dublin on Thursday morning.

Investors must now weigh the cost – financial and reputational – of pilot availability, that has resulted in hundreds of flights being axed over the past week alone.

Mr O’Leary claimed that only up to €26m would be cut from Ryanair’s profitability in the first half of its financial year as a result of the problems.

The airline boss outlined that customers whose flights have been cancelled will receive an email by this evening.

This will inform them what flights they can transfer to, which will be “hopefully on the same or at worse the next day”.

Ryanair faces a compensation bill of up to €20m for the flight cancellations mess.

Under EU law, passengers given less than 14 days’ notice of a flight cancellation are entitled to claim compensation worth up to €250. But Ryanair published a list of cancelled flights last night, giving many customers more than a fortnight’s notice and affecting their rights to this compensation.

Mr O’Leary added: “Clearly, there’s a large reputational impact for which again I apologise. We will try to do better in future.”

A Ryanair source, however, claimed that rostering issues blamed for causing the current disruption were a “red herring” and not the core problem.

More than 100 Ryanair pilots gathered at two meetings in Dublin yesterday to discuss the issue and their unhappiness with current work practices at the airline.

Pilots are also due to meet at other bases, including Charleroi in Brussels, Bergamo in Italy and London Stansted.

That puts Ryanair management on the defence as it tries to handle the PR disaster.

Mr O’Leary insisted he was not aware pilots had any grievances with the airline, despite the meetings in Dublin.