Ryanair faces flak after cancelling flights affecting 30,000 passengers ahead of strikes this week by cabin crew in six countries.
The walkout by staff in Spain, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Italy and Germany led the budget carrier to pre-cancel 190 of its 2,400 scheduled flights on Friday.
Ryanair said yesterday that it was taking action to cancel the flights three days in advance, giving passengers time to find another flight.
The airline insisted that passengers would not receive compensation as the strikes were outside of its control, The Times reported.
Ryanair was exempt from making the payments because the strikes were called by unions largely controlled by people working for “competitor airlines” such as Norwegian, TAP Air Portugal, Eurowings, KLM and Aer Lingus.
The Civil Aviation Authority has warned that airlines must pay compensation for strikes taken by a carrier’s own staff.
The aviation regulator acknowledged that the action was not by Ryanair’s UK staff but reportedly added: “When a flight cancellation is caused by strike action by the airline’s employees, the airline is required to pay compensation to passengers in respect of the cancellation of the flight, if it has not warned passengers of the cancellation at least two weeks prior to the scheduled time of departure.”
Ryanair said in a statement: “No compensation is payable to customers when the delay/cancellation is beyond the airline’s control. If these strikes, by a tiny minority of Ryanair crew, were within Ryanair’s control, there would be no strikes and no cancellations.
“In recent years during which there were over 15 days of pilot and cabin crew strikes in Germany, Lufthansa was not required to pay EU261 compensation. Similarly, the UK CAA should also explain why it took no action against BA during last year’s cabin crew strikes.”
The airline insisted: “As these strikes are being promoted and driven by competitor employees, they are regrettably beyond Ryanair’s control.
“Ryanair sincerely regrets these unnecessary customer disruptions, which have been called by unions at the behest of competitor airline employees.”
Ryanair yesterday signed an agreement with the three main cabin crew unions in Italy and described Friday’s planned walkout in the country as being called by a tiny union which has “no recognition or support” among its Italian cabin crew.
However, Rory Boland, travel editor at consumer group Which?, said: “These cancellations mean more travel chaos, more unnecessary disruption and more holiday plans in tatters for 30,000 Ryanair passengers – when will this airline finally do right by its customers?
“The airline must now immediately arrange alternative flights or provide a full refund and pay out compensation to those affected – including the many people still waiting for the money they’re owed from its shambolic summer of cancellations.”
The airline said more than 90% of its 2,400 flights and 450,000 passengers would be unaffected by the industrial action.
Ryanair chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said: “We sincerely apologise to those customers affected by these unnecessary strikes on Friday, which we have done our utmost to avoid, given that we have already offered these unions recognition agreements, Collective Labour Agreements, and a move to local contracts/law in 2019.
“These repeated unnecessary strikes are damaging Ryanair’s business and our customer confidence at a time when oil prices are rising strongly, and if they continue, it is inevitable that we will have to look again at our capacity growth this winter and in summer 2019.
“We hope these unions will see common sense and work with us to finalise agreements for the benefit of our pilots and cabin crew over the coming weeks without further disrupting our customers or our flights.
“When we can successfully do deals with unions in Ireland, the UK, Germany and Italy, why are some unions in Belgium, Holland and Spain not doing similar deals?”