Ryanair cancels thousands more flights, 400,000 passengers affected

Buffeted by pilot recruitment and roster problems, Ryanair confirmed on Wednesday it was cancelling 18,000 more flights between November and March, with 400,000 passengers affected in addition to the hundreds of thousands it announced last week.

Those customers affected by the cancellations will be placed on an alternative flight or receive a refund, while Ryanair has also offered a €40 single or €80 return voucher for those whose flights were cancelled.

Ryanair said it was slow its rate of growth this year and next in order to reduce traffic and resolve its pilot roster problems.

The Dublin-based budget carrier said it expected traffic to fall over the winter and next summer, with slightly lower yields over the next two months due to seat promotions, though current financial guidance remains unchanged for €1.4-1.45bn profit after tax for the current year.

By flying 25 less aeroplanes of its 400 fleet from November and 10 fewer aircraft out of 445 from next April, monthly traffic growth will slow to 4% from 9%, with full year traffic cut to 129m passengers from 131m, though this will still be 7.5% up on last year.

Planned summer 2018 fleet growth will be trimmed to 435 aircraft from 445, with traffic to March 2019 expected to slow to 138m from 142m, which would be a 7% rate of growth.

The total cost of the flight cancellations last week should be under €25m plus a further €25m of free flight vouchers on Wednesday.

"We will provide a full update on these issues to shareholders during the half year results in late October," the company said.

The reduction in flights will "eliminate all risk of further flight cancellations, because slower growth creates lots of spare aircraft and crews across Ryanair’s 86 bases this winter", it said.

Ryanair pledged that it will roster "all of the extra pilot leave necessary" in October, November and December to meet the regulatory requirements and "so that Ryanair starts a new calendar leave year from 1st Jan 2018 with no backlog".

It also pledged to roster almost 40% of the annual pilot leave requirement for 2018 in Q1 2018, which removes risk of roster problems recurring next year and said it will roll out a series of low fare seat sales for winter 2017 confident that there will be no further roster related cancellations.

Analyst Neil Wilson at ETX Capital, commenting on Thursday morning, said it was not just customers who are in for a rough ride, with investors also advised to expect turbulence ahead as earnings are likely to be hit by higher costs and slower growth.

"Investors may be right to question whether management is being entirely truthful when they claim there is no pilot shortage. However much Ryanair dresses this up as a holiday booking issue, it does not have enough pilots to cover the roster for the next six months. If this is not a pilot shortage it’s hard to fathom what is. The airline has said it has 650 or so pilots arriving in the next few months to take the strain."