Ryanair flight cancellation troubles to cost airline up to €25m as boss Michael O’Leary bemoans ‘mess of our own making’

Ryanair is set to foot a €25m (£22m) bill following a wave of flight cancellations set to take place over the next six weeks.

The airline said over the weekend that it will cancel 40 to 50 flights every day until the end of October after “messing up” its pilots’ holidays, the fallout from which could affect nearly 400,000 passengers.

The Irish carrier said it could face compensation claims of up to €20m and lose €5m worth of fares. However, Goodbody Stockbrokers predicts the flight cancellations could cost Ryanair nearly €34.5m.

Read more: Norwegian has quietly been poaching dozens of Ryanair pilots

London-listed shares in the airline dropped three per cent in early trading yesterday, but recovered slightly to end the day down 2.39 per cent.

Ryanair’s chief executive Michael O’Leary said the development was “a mess of our own making”.

“While over 98 per cent of our customers will not be affected by these cancellations over the next six weeks, we apologise unreservedly to those customers whose travel will be disrupted,” he said.

O’Leary also rebuffed suggestions that a lack of pilots had contributed to the problem. It emerged yesterday that low-cost rival Norwegian has been recruiting dozens of Ryanair pilots since the start of 2017, with the airline confirming yesterday “140 pilots have joined us from Ryanair this year”.

O’Leary stressed yesterday “Ryanair is not short of pilots – we were able to fully crew our peak summer schedule in June, July and August – but we have messed up the allocation of annual leave to pilots in September and October because we are trying to allocate a full year’s leave into a nine-month period from April to December”.

The European Commission also waded into the discussion yesterday, saying that the budget airline will have to comply with European Union rules on passenger rights which include possible reimbursement.

A spokesperson said: “We have to check if all this is respected by Ryanair. For instance, you are entitled to reimbursement if you are not warned two weeks in advance.”

Questions have also been raised over why Ryanair did not follow in the footsteps of British Airways in leasing aircraft and crew. Earlier this year, BA struck an agreement with Qatar Airways to cover strike action by mixed fleet cabin crew in a row over pay.

Aviation expert Julian Bray branded Ryanair’s cancellations a “major operational disaster”.

“I fail to see why Ryanair have not immediately wet-leased aircraft and crews from other airlines to cover the flights they have cancelled,” he said.

Read more: Ryanair cancels up to 50 flights per day to clear staff holiday “backlog”