16 September, 2017
The airline said that it will cancel 40 to 50 flights per day for the next six weeks so that it can improve its "punctuality".
The move will help bring up punctuality back up to 90pc by providing additional standby aircraft, after on-time performance fell below 80pc in the first two weeks of September.
The move is created to improve "system-wide punctuality" which the airline admitted had fallen below 80 per cent in the first two weeks of September, through a combination of air traffic control capacity delays and strikes, weather disruptions and "increased holiday allocations to pilots and cabin crew".
This is due to their work calendar switching from April-March to January-December, as well as increased holiday days to their pilots and cabin crew.
Ryanair is mandated under the Irish Aviation Authority to bring staff holidays in line with the calendar year from January 1, requiring it to allocate the leave before the end of the year.
If you know in advance that you haven't got the pilots, then maybe you shouldn't sell airline ticktets for flights that are never going to take off?
Tighter crewing numbers, ATC capacity restrictions in the UK, Germany and Spain, as well as strikes in France and thunderstorms, has given rise to "significant delays" in recent weeks, leading Ryanair's on-time performance to decline to under 80% from 90% over the past two weeks.
"By canceling less than 2 percent of our flying program over the next six weeks, (until our winter schedule starts in early November), we can improve the operational resilience of our schedules and restore punctuality to our annualized target of 90 percent".
It added that customers will be contacted directly about the small number of cancellations and offered alternative flights or full refunds.
Ryanair has told customers flights are operating as scheduled unless they receive emails saying otherwise.
