Ryanair will axe pilot leave to fix cancellations crisis

Ryanair shareholders have told the budget airline's boss that the flight cancellation controversy is a 'complete cock up'.

A Ryanair plane takes off from Dublin Airport on September 21, 2017. Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary on September 21, 2017, said he could not rule out axing more flights, but added any additional cancellations would not be linked to ongoing pilot roster problems. / AFP PHOTO / Paul FAITHPAUL FAITH/AFP/Getty Images

They have also demanded to know how chief executive Michael O’Leary intends to fix the “reputational damage” to the company caused by the cancellation of 2000 flights in September and October.

During a meeting with shareholders at the airline’s AGM in Dublin yesterday, Mr O’Leary admitted the company had made “a boo-boo”.

He said that Ryanair would be taking back one week of pilots’ annual leave to prevent the cancellation of any more flights caused by staff shortages.

He also said that a number of Ryanair pilots would be offered a €10,000 annual pay rise on top of a €12,000 bonus in a bid to plug the pilot gap over the next two months.

Mr O’Leary blamed the crisis on the mismanagement of pilots’ holidays.

One shareholder told him: “This is a complete cock up. You should make a large donation to a third world country and wear your sack cloths for a few weeks.”

Other shareholders raised concerns about the “reputational damage” the crisis has caused.

Mr O’Leary told them that, to prevent further cancellations, pilots who have booked four weeks annual leave in a row in October and November would have to reduce that to three weeks.

“A very big block of annual leave (for pilots) was over allocated for September, October and November,” he said. “Five hundred pilots with a four-week block of leave booked for October and 500 in November will have to work one week of that leave.

“We will tell them, ‘we will make it up to you’. They will get it back in January. We will be reasonable. Say a pilot has booked a family holiday to Australia, we will work with them.”

He added: “We don’t need their agreement ... It is in their contracts.”

In a briefing to the media after the AGM Mr O’Leary said a number of Ryanair pilots would be offered a €10,000 annual pay rise where there are recruitment problems, including at airports such as London Stansted, Dublin, Frankfurt and Berlin.

He said pilots’ pay at some of the airline’s largest bases “may be a bit on the low side”.

This comes on top of an offer earlier in the week of a €12,000 bonus to pilots to work on their days off to help fix the staffing problem.

Ryanair will complete training for a further 120 pilots within two weeks and will recruit 500 new pilots over the next six months, Mr O’Leary said.

He insisted that this was part of normal recruitment and not connected to the current crisis.