Ryanair cancelling flights
- Thread starter jonneymendoza
- Start date
If the media have it even closely right about their alleged billion pounds/euros profits last year, then compensation of a couple of million isn't going to give O'Leary sleepless nights.
My wife said that no matter how it shakes out, lots of people will give them a miss after this **** up, but I think that she's forgetting the great British trait of either being prepared to sit on the fuselage roof, or sit on the wing if they can shave a nickel from the fare.
Quite frankly it’s a disgrace.
I’ve been following this and they seem to be blaming weather, industrial action and staff holidays.
What utter tosh. Whilst there has been industrial action in France recently affecting flights, to try and use this as an excuse to cancel flights 6 weeks ahead is complete nonsense.
The same with weather, how on earth you cancel flights 6 weeks ahead based on weather conditions I have no idea - it’s utterly ridiculous. If I had their kind of weather forecasting technology I wouldn’t be running an airline.
As for blaming staff for taking holidays - this is Ryanair management showing its true colours. Its management incompetence pure and simple. Staff at Ryanair have no real choice when they take holidays, they can submit requests and it may or may not be granted (but never in summer). Ultimately its up to Ryanair to grant holidays.
The issue here is flight duty limits - pilots are limited to 1000 actual flight hours per year and 2000 hours of duty (i.e. at work time). There are also monthly and weekly limits. It has changed recently so I may be slightly out on those numbers
Either way, once a pilot reaches those hours he or she is sitting on the side lines until the new year clocks in (and at Ryanair quite often earning little or no money whilst waiting). And this is what is happening, flight crews are out of hours due to working too much over the summer. Its not rocket science and easy to predict.
I understand there is some talk of Ryanair changing the date upon which these yearly flight time limits start, but this is not really the issue. The job of the crew planning department is to plan for exactly this sort of thing and this should have been foreseen a long time ago - it probably was but for whatever reason not acted on.
The simple fact of the matter is that Ryanair are horrible to work for. And people have been leaving in droves. Its not about the money - its more about a culture of petty vindictiveness and contempt from management to the people who work for them (see above about Ryanair trying to transfer blame in the publics eye’s onto staff taking holidays). I won’t give individual examples in case I inadvertently identify those individuals but I recently attended an interview with a couple of Ryanair pilots looking to jump ship and I assure you - they utterly utterly loathed the place.
This does not excuse the astonishing rudeness I have witnessed and be subjected to, by Ryanair ground staff in the past. (Although maybe an explanation).
As well as the self employed contracts most staff are under - its Ryanair’s way of trying to dodge even to most basic social obligations to their staff. No sickness, no pension, basically no employment rights. And they can dodge paying the kind of taxes most employers are liable for.
8 or 9 years ago I pulled up on stand next to a Ryanair aircraft - it had “Bye Bye BMI Baby” proudly emblazoned on the side. Well BMI Baby did go under. What a wonderful thing to crow about - all those people losing their jobs, including friends of mine.
Now this is supposition on my part but I can see no reason why Ryanair cannot wet lease aircraft in from outside in order to make up a shortfall in flights. My guess would be that they can, but have simply worked out its cheaper to inconvenience 10’s of thousands of people.
Sorry for the rant but you see, I absolutely have to get back to the UK next week and had no choice but to book Ryanair. And now I’m not sure I’ll make it. (or rather have to rebook via an intermediate airport, if I'm being less melodramatic).
I’ve been following this and they seem to be blaming weather, industrial action and staff holidays.
What utter tosh. Whilst there has been industrial action in France recently affecting flights, to try and use this as an excuse to cancel flights 6 weeks ahead is complete nonsense.
The same with weather, how on earth you cancel flights 6 weeks ahead based on weather conditions I have no idea - it’s utterly ridiculous. If I had their kind of weather forecasting technology I wouldn’t be running an airline.
As for blaming staff for taking holidays - this is Ryanair management showing its true colours. Its management incompetence pure and simple. Staff at Ryanair have no real choice when they take holidays, they can submit requests and it may or may not be granted (but never in summer). Ultimately its up to Ryanair to grant holidays.
The issue here is flight duty limits - pilots are limited to 1000 actual flight hours per year and 2000 hours of duty (i.e. at work time). There are also monthly and weekly limits. It has changed recently so I may be slightly out on those numbers
Either way, once a pilot reaches those hours he or she is sitting on the side lines until the new year clocks in (and at Ryanair quite often earning little or no money whilst waiting). And this is what is happening, flight crews are out of hours due to working too much over the summer. Its not rocket science and easy to predict.
I understand there is some talk of Ryanair changing the date upon which these yearly flight time limits start, but this is not really the issue. The job of the crew planning department is to plan for exactly this sort of thing and this should have been foreseen a long time ago - it probably was but for whatever reason not acted on.
The simple fact of the matter is that Ryanair are horrible to work for. And people have been leaving in droves. Its not about the money - its more about a culture of petty vindictiveness and contempt from management to the people who work for them (see above about Ryanair trying to transfer blame in the publics eye’s onto staff taking holidays). I won’t give individual examples in case I inadvertently identify those individuals but I recently attended an interview with a couple of Ryanair pilots looking to jump ship and I assure you - they utterly utterly loathed the place.
This does not excuse the astonishing rudeness I have witnessed and be subjected to, by Ryanair ground staff in the past. (Although maybe an explanation).
As well as the self employed contracts most staff are under - its Ryanair’s way of trying to dodge even to most basic social obligations to their staff. No sickness, no pension, basically no employment rights. And they can dodge paying the kind of taxes most employers are liable for.
8 or 9 years ago I pulled up on stand next to a Ryanair aircraft - it had “Bye Bye BMI Baby” proudly emblazoned on the side. Well BMI Baby did go under. What a wonderful thing to crow about - all those people losing their jobs, including friends of mine.
Now this is supposition on my part but I can see no reason why Ryanair cannot wet lease aircraft in from outside in order to make up a shortfall in flights. My guess would be that they can, but have simply worked out its cheaper to inconvenience 10’s of thousands of people.
Sorry for the rant but you see, I absolutely have to get back to the UK next week and had no choice but to book Ryanair. And now I’m not sure I’ll make it. (or rather have to rebook via an intermediate airport, if I'm being less melodramatic).
I don't think the story has changed per say but those things are applying together - they've changed their holiday calendar to start from January rather than April and combined with the fact that they've have 140 pilots poached by Norwegian Air they're now in a situation where they've got a bunch of staff who need to use up annual leave before the end of the year.
The really naff part from the POV of the customers is the lack of notice, this is pretty shameful especially if parents have kids in school and are offered flights that eat into term time ditto to people wit limited flexibility re: taking leave themselves.
If they notified people a bit more in advance they'd be able to cancel, get a refund and book with another carrier - the cynic in me wonders if part of the short notice aspect is deliberate, i.e. by the time they get notified it is only a few days before and the rival options have gone up significantly in price ergo their choice is to take one of the Ryan Air alternatives or pay through the nose to go with a rival if they want a refund from Ryan Air.
Associate
Well said @esmozz
I'm glad I dodged the RYR bullet. I don't know a single happy crew member of the company and considering the size, that says a lot.
I'm glad I dodged the RYR bullet. I don't know a single happy crew member of the company and considering the size, that says a lot.
Soldato
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2012
- Posts
- 8,333
this is the thing i dislike about any major industry, and the aircraft industry in particular seems to be big on "oh noes, we're down 5million's profit this year now we only have 995million profit"
i get the point of industry is to make profit, but when you're a billion in the green every year you've got no right complaining about anything because you're plainly doing pretty bloody well.
Man of Honour
Ryanair has an average fleet age of around 6 years and flies entirely Boeing 737-800s, so my money would definitely not be on something technical.
I have to use Ryanair for work.
STN-BLL
STN-OSL
Luckily I have no trips to Denmark or Norway coming up.
I've rarely used Ryanair. But after this latest debacle I think I would avoid them. They may be cheap but if there is the ever present threat of your flights being cancelled due to poor management then they just aren't reliable enough to use. I doubt this will bankrupt them but I do think it will have a long lasting affect on them. Remember the awful PR disaster that sunk Hoover? They never fully recovered after that.
She's absolutely right there. When Ryanair are offering their next summer flights at a good % less than their competitors, people will obviously forget what an absolute fiasco this has all been, and choose to fly with them. There will only be a small minority of people who won't fly with them out of principle, and unfortunately those people will just get trumped out by those looking for cheap fares.
Man of Honour
Woohoo - well getting compo for a flight delay works.
Nothing to do with Ryanair but on Aug 19th, 25 of us flew to Cyprus for a wedding with Thomas Cook and we were 4.5 hours late.
Two weeks later on the return we were 4 hours late and we have all been given £700 compo each
That also includes £700 each for 4 kids age 3 to 7.
Nothing to do with Ryanair but on Aug 19th, 25 of us flew to Cyprus for a wedding with Thomas Cook and we were 4.5 hours late.
Two weeks later on the return we were 4 hours late and we have all been given £700 compo each
That also includes £700 each for 4 kids age 3 to 7.
Soldato
Woohoo - well getting compo for a flight delay works.
Nothing to do with Ryanair but on Aug 19th, 25 of us flew to Cyprus for a wedding with Thomas Cook and we were 4.5 hours late.
Two weeks later on the return we were 4 hours late and we have all been given £700 compo each
That also includes £700 each for 4 kids age 3 to 7.
Congrats, £700 I guess EUR400 each x 2?
Yikes, why does your employer force you to use them? Does Ryan air even give you points/rewards?
Man of Honour
Man of Honour
I have to take the cheapest option, which for those destinations is Ryanair
Woohoo - well getting compo for a flight delay works.
Nothing to do with Ryanair but on Aug 19th, 25 of us flew to Cyprus for a wedding with Thomas Cook and we were 4.5 hours late.
Two weeks later on the return we were 4 hours late and we have all been given £700 compo each
That also includes £700 each for 4 kids age 3 to 7.
A full Ryanair flight makes about £1000 on the tickets for everyone. So can people be surprised with this latest compensation culture, that rather than risk a delay they cancel and give money back. That's why you are seeing flights cancelled, its cheaper not to run them and give money back.
The compensation level is a joke and only invites trouble, which like whiplash claims we all end up paying for. Only this one can have huge safety implications.
Yes it's nothing new to cancel flights rather than take the route and then pay a delay compo anyway as well as the cost of operating the aircraft. They know full well as much as people like to bleat about never using them again they will because they are travelling to Italy cheaper than a return taxi on a night out.
These airlines are paying in excess of 200m this year in 261 payments. It will be spread out to us all on our holidays. It's not like you can chose someone else instead because they will all have to put up the cost.
These airlines are paying in excess of 200m this year in 261 payments. It will be spread out to us all on our holidays. It's not like you can chose someone else instead because they will all have to put up the cost.
Well hopefully O'Leary's board vote him out, I suspect that might be the only thing to save Ryanair. All the people affected, whether directly or as a result will want to see blood for this. Loads of people I know have already said there's zero chance they'd ever fly Ryanair.