Ryanair cancellations: Airline suspends 34 winter routes including London Gatwick to Belfast and London Stansted to Edinburgh
Ryanair has announced today that 34 routes will be suspended from November through to March 2018 as it seeks to bring an end to its flight cancellation troubles.
The decision means routes including London Gatwick to Belfast, and London Stansted to Edinburgh and Glasgow have been suspended, with up to 18,000 flights and 400,000 more people affected.
The airline said it will slow growth to curb the risk of having to announce more cancellations by flying 25 fewer aircraft and reducing its flying schedule.
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The 34 suspended Ryanair routes from November to March 2018:
1. Bucharest – Palermo
18. Sofia – Castellon
2. Chania – Athens
19. Sofia – Memmingen
3. Chania – Pafos
20. Sofia – Pisa
4. Cologne – Berlin
21. Sofia – Stockholm
5. Chania – Thessaloniki
22. Sofia – Venice
6. Edinburgh – Szczecin
23. Thessaloniki – Bratislava
7. Glasgow – Las Palmas
24. Thessaloniki – Paris
8. Hamburg – Edinburgh
25. Thessaloniki – Warsaw
9. Hamburg – Katowice
26. Trapani – Baden Baden
10. Hamburg – Oslo
27. Trapani – Frankfurt
11. Hamburg – Thessaloniki
28. Trapani – Genoa
12. Hamburg – Venice
29. Trapani – Krakow
13. London Gatwick – Belfast
30. Trapani – Parma
14. London Stansted – Edinburgh
31. Trapani – Rome
15. London Stansted – Glasgow
32. Trapani – Trieste
16. Newcastle – Faro
33. Wroclaw – Warsaw
17. Newcastle – Gdansk
34. Gdansk – Warsaw
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said:
We sincerely apologise to those customers who have been affected by last week’s flight cancellations, or these sensible schedule changes announced today.
While over 99 per cent of our 129m customers will not have been affected by any cancellations or disruptions, we deeply regret any doubt we caused existing customers last week about Ryanair’s reliability, or the risk of further cancellations.
Ryanair said the rest of its 1,800 routes will continue to operate for the winter. For those passengers who are affected, the airline said they had been contacted today to alert them of the schedule changes and offered alternative flights or full refunds.
They are also receiving a €40 travel voucher, which means the total bill the airline faces is set to nearly double from its earlier prediction of €25m.
Ryanair said today that the free vouchers will mean under €25m in costs, on top of the €25m figure it had estimated for the six-week batch of cancellations already announced.
The airline has had to cancel a wave of flights over six weeks spanning September and October due to a mismanagement of pilot holiday.
O’Leary said: “From today, there will be no more rostering related flight cancellations this winter or in summer 2018. Slower growth this winter, will create lots of spare aircraft and crews which will allow us to manage the exceptional volumes of annual leave we committed to delivering in the nine months to Dec 2017. We will start a new 12 month leave period on the 1st of Jan 2018 in full compliance with EU regulations and the IAA’s requirements.”
Read more: Thousands of Ryanair customers risk missing flight cancellation refunds