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RYANAIR HAS GIVEN the details of how it will re-route or compensate the thousands of customers affected by its widespread flight cancellations, ahead of a deadline from a UK watchdog.
The low-budget airline had been given a deadline of 5pm this evening by the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority to correct its compensation policy for passengers.
This came following the airline cancelling 2,100 flights between September and October and a further 18,000 between November and March, as a result of what the airline said is a rostering issue.
The UK CAA began enforcement proceedings against Ryanair on Wednesday.
The CAA said that the airline was in breach of UK consumer law by failing to offer to re-route affected customers on rival airlines.
Yesterday, it wrote to the airline requiring greater clarity over a number of consumer issues.
The CAA required that Ryanair issue a press release to provide clarification on three important issues:
Ryanair had to provide a clear statement addressing all of these on its website by this evening.
Ryanair responds
The Irish Commission for Aviation Regulation said today that it had also secured an agreement from Ryanair that it will comply with regulations and directly provide affected customers with the necessary information on refunds, rerouting, care and assistance and compensation.
In its statement, Ryanair said that it had emailed all of its customers who were affected by the cancellations, which the airline says is under 1%.
In terms of refunds, it said a full refund would be offered for an unused flight sector and any associated fees.
The airline also laid out a number of re-routing options for affected passengers.
First it said it would move the customer to the next available Ryanair flight on the same route.
If this option isn’t available on the same or next day as the original flight, customers will be moved on the next flight to suitable alternative airports.
If this option isn’t available, then customers will be given a flight on another airline (Easyjet, Jet2, Vueling, Cityjet, Aer Lingus, Norwegian or Eurowings airlines).
If this isn’t available, the airline said it would offer the customer re-accommodation on any comparable alternative transport.
The airline also said that it would reimburse any reasonable out of pocket expenses incurred by customers as a result of these flight cancellations.
“If any Ryanair customer on one of these disrupted flights believes that they may have chosen an option that was not suitable for them as a result of any misunderstanding of their EU261 rights, then they should write directly to Ryanair’s Director of Customer Services and Ryanair will assist them in any way it can to obtain their full EU261 rights and entitlements,” the company said.
“We apologise again sincerely for the disruption and inconvenience our rostering failure has caused some of our customers,” said chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs.
“Over the past week we have refunded/re-accommodated over 97% of the customers affected by the 18th September cancellations.
This week (by close of business on Sunday, 1 October), we will have re-accommodated/refunded over 90% of the 400,000 customers who were notified of schedule changes (on flights between November 2017 and March 2018) on Wednesday 27 [September].
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The negotiation strength of the pilots gets stronger by the day
@Nick Allen: I don’t think so. The CAA has powerful teeth. O Leary won’t cede to the pilots.
@Nick Allen: certainly in terms of growing their business but for now they have taken the heat out of the situation despite the current issues. Had a chat with a gent earlier on a thread who gave some good insight. I had though that pilots were moving towards being commodities- maybe not yet
@Hurt Stoogie: O’Learys veil of arrogance and invincibility has been shattered.The UK regulator put it up to him and he politely obeyed.He will have to play by the rules from now on.And it’s only the start for O’Leary,many have sharpened knives for years that are only coming out of their sheaths now.Michael’s days of lecturing others are over now.
Time for the Irish Aviation Authority to pull their finger out and make sure that the passengers flying out of Ireland get the same treatment as those flying out of the U.K.
@Larry Doyle: it’ll be enforced European wide. It doesn’t just apply to U.K. Origin flights
@Hurt Stoogie: How UK’s Civil Aviation Authority can enforce anything European wide?
@cortisola: because they’re enforcing EU law
“The problem with capitalism is that you eventually run out of people to exploit” – Anon
@Franklin Roosevelt: the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of others peoples money
@Hurt Stoogie: can someone be critic of capitalism without been called a socialist?
@Eric: who was called a socialist?
@Hurt Stoogie: I hope you despise the socialism of making private bank debt a public taxpayer debt.
Then again, you seem to be an admirer one of of Jimmy Savile’s closest friends.
@Franklin Roosevelt: jimmy saville?? You ok Hun? And tell us, if the banks were allowed to collapse, where would we be?
@Hurt Stoogie: We’d have had a far more robust, equitable and just recovery. Like when we adopted socialist, anti-monopoly policies after the Great Depression.
And the quote you wrote is from Margaret Thatcher, who was a close friend of the pedophile Jimmy Savile.
@Franklin Roosevelt: it’s paedophile. And the quote has nothing to do with who is friends with who. And Margaret thatcher was right.
@Franklin Roosevelt: we would have no banks, no recovery and would be worse off than Greece.
@Eric: Ya, a realist, but your in the wrong place for that. It’s all black or white thinking around here.
@Franklin Roosevelt: socialism doesn’t work either. The airline Industry is still in a good position judging by expectations of DAA
I’m very much undecided as to whether I am a socialist or a capitalist. Which is the one that doesn’t make a big deal out providing a sup of water for its hard working employees / comrades?
@Franklin Roosevelt: And then the peasants revolt.
We’re lucky that our neighbours the British understand what a regular is for! Our bunch were too scared or in the pockets of Ryanair to call them out on their appalling customer reimbursement process. Well done to the UK.
@Polly Dolan: *regulator oops
@Polly Dolan: Not the first time with our “well paid” regulators showing a lack of quality.Rember one Pat Neary the Bank Regulator,who walked away from the bank disaster with millions of a payout.
@Polly Dolan: h
@Polly Dolan: Brown envelopes in Ireland, Polly, brown envelopes.
Proper order put the customers first and stand up to the big companies. Meanwhile in Ireland Leo picks out another pair of novelty socks.
Took an agency in another country to get them to play fair…. That’s great.
@Seth Cheffetz: their biggest market? 30% Ish I believe
Not a cheep out of Leo about the rights of passengers.It will be hard for O’Leary to pull out of this nose dive,
Good move
Can people get refunded for air bnbs,hotels etc if they already paid and booked as they didn’t know their flight was to be cancelled after arranging annual leave etc
@Stan: No. But maybe check your travel insurance policy and see what might be available to you through that, if anything.
Will this just be for UK customers?
@RMcG: Their regulators actually do their job while we have absent regulators like what caused banking disaster and useless consumer regulator for electricity competition as next to no competition plus UK news yesterday said our aviation regulator big part of the problem.
@RMcG:”The Irish Commission for Aviation Regulation said today that it had also secured an agreement from Ryanair that it will comply with regulations and directly provide affected customers with the necessary information on refunds, rerouting, care and assistance and compensation.”
@James Lenihan: was more of a by product after the UK did their job….
Took Uk regulator to do what irish regulator should have done ?
First of all the CAA( Civil Aviation Authority)is not a watch dog like a regulator.
They oversee aircraft maintenance,Pilot licensing/medicals exams& tests and airline AOC etc.
The Irish equivalent does the same but we have an added layer with the commissioner for aviation regulation.
These lads in the commissions seem to go from one commission to another like a merry go around, I’ve yet to see or hear anything good they ever done.
Don’t trust Ryanair. Watch this space. In the middle of all this they tried to manipulate pilots hours.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Personally, I feel RyanAir are an affront on the human psyche. Because you fly cheap, doesn’t entitle them to treat you like s**t.
@Helen White: Some commentator on the news said ‘They’re too big to fail’ and I instantly thought “Oh, how the curse of the commentator may fall on them”….
@Helen White: then fly with AL or whoever and pay the premium. Pro-choice
The CAA in the UK bites at Ryanair but did nothing to British Airways when their IT systems crashed earlier this year, they also left many passengers high and dry throughout the world without rebooking with other airlines, I think Ryanair have now gone above and beyond what other airlines currently offer.
@Sam Cairns: Oh, here you go. Poor little woebegone Ireland. Cop on, man.
All the Ryanair knockers seem to have forgotten just what they did to reduce the cost of flying. I always have and always will fly with Ryanair if it offers the cheapest option on where I want to go as will most people.
What is really going on here, does someone care to explain to me as I’ve missed how it all developed? I mean, it can’t be real reason for the cancellations – rostering issues? Ok roster mistake that affects 1 or 2 flights, sh….. happens, but hundreds of flights? How it could be fostering issue? Is that some silent strike of the pilots / cabin crews or what? A serious question. Thanks.
Ryanair will just cancel the flights to destinations that their rivals arent flying to.
Why do I get the feeling that RyanAir will provide the required information to passengers, but it will be buried deeply in pages of irrelevant gobbledegook that nobody will read, let alone print out?
Ryanair is now advertising 1 million cheap tickets.
Do the tickets cover actual flights?
@Fiona deFreyne: don’t try probably not available for your dates Fiona
@Noel: actually I got the mail and the new for me anyway showing the lowest price over a month. That’s a great feature- well done. Not all bad news unless you want it to be
You get what you pay for with Ryanair and sometimes not even that.
@Fiona deFreyne: Tony have you booked any flights with FR in the time frame? I bet not. Try to see the positive side of life for a change.
Just after this media party Ryanair bought back a huge chunk of their own shares at bargain prices…is O’Leary up to his tricks!?!
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