Ryanair is to tell 400,000 passengers that their flight has been cancelled, after it admitted to a “mess-up” on pilot holidays that left 18million ticket holders wondering if their holiday plans would be ruined. In a hastily arranged Dublin press conference Monday amid a passenger revolt and a slump in the company’s share price, the normally combative chief executive Michael O’Leary apologised “unreservedly” for “a mess of our own making”. O’Leary blamed a one-off holiday rostering issue, which if not tackled immediately would send the airline’s on-time punctuality below 50%, adding that it will cost Ryanair about E25m in compensation payouts and other costs. But in a flash of the arrogance for which he is better known, O’Leary said that travellers vowing never to fly Ryanair again will almost certainly return to the airline because its prices are lower. “Our booking engine is full of passengers who have sworn they will never fly with us again,” he said. Ryanair will cancel 40 to 50 flights every day until 31 October, with the airline promising to focus the cuts on routes where alternative flights are more easily available. For example, it will cancel one flight a day on its Stansted to Dublin route, which operates 12 a day.<br/>
unaligned
Ryanairand Norwegian Air Shuttle have halted talks on a flight connection agreement, both companies said Monday. Norwegian Air, which recently agreed a partnership with easyJet to make its long-distance flights available to easyJet customers, confirmed an earlier statement by Ryanair CE Michael O‘Leary that talks with the Irish airline on a similar agreement had ended. “Norwegian welcomes any initiatives that offer passengers smooth, affordable transfers between flights and we are delighted to have entered into partnership with easyJet which was an obvious and natural fit for each airline’s large and growing networks,” Norwegian Air said. “Previous discussions with Ryanair are no longer active,” it said. Earlier Monday, Ryanair and Norwegian Air disagreed publicly over the number of staff each was poaching from the other. Ryanair has been seeking deals to provide short-haul “feeder flights” to link passengers to routes operated by long-haul carriers and had planned to start serving fellow low-cost operator Norwegian Air earlier this year. <br/>
Ryanair faces a bill of up to €25m from the abrupt decision to cancel up to 2,100 flights over the next six weeks, a move the airline was forced to make to abide by safety rules for pilot flying time. Michael O’Leary, the Ryanair CE, apologised Monday after passengers around Europe vented their fury on social media over the decision to cancel 50 flights a day starting on Saturday and running through October. “We apologise unreservedly to those customers whose travel will be disrupted,” said O’Leary, scrambling to limit the reputational damage the airline has faced since announcing the cancellations on Friday. “This is a mess of our own making. I apologise sincerely to all our customers for any worry or concern this has caused.” Some passengers were not convinced. Stephen Smith, who only discovered his flight from Alicante to Manchester on Saturday morning had been cancelled when his wife’s boarding pass was rejected by security, said there had been little effort to help stranded passengers. It remained unclear why the carrier had been unable to give advance notice of the cancellations at the weekend. It only published a list of flights affected Monday. “We were able to fully crew our peak summer schedule in June, July and August, but we have messed up the allocation of annual leave to pilots in September and October,” he said. “This issue will not recur in 2018.” The EC weighed in Monday, reminding Ryanair it had to comply with EU rules on passenger rights, including possible reimbursement and compensation. “A passenger whose flights are cancelled has a comprehensive set of rights including the right to reimbursement,” said a commission spokesperson. “We expect Ryanair to comply by these rules.”<br/>
Icelandic budget airline Wow Air's first Airbus A320neo has suffered ramp-collision damage just five months after the jet was delivered. Transportation Safety Board of Canada has identified the aircraft as having struck a passenger boarding bridge at Montreal on 9 September. It had arrived from Reykjavik with 143 passengers and six crew members, and had been following the parking line, says the authority in a bulletin. The pilot was "following the marshaller's instructions", it adds, when the jet's left-hand CFM International Leap-1A engine hit the bridge. None of the occupants was injured, but the engine intake sustained damage. <br/>
China Southern subsidiary XiamenAir plans to grow its fleet to more than 200 aircraft—and expand its widebody aircraft to 18—in 2018 to keep up with international market demand. The carrier is scheduled to open intercontinental routes to Paris and Toronto by 2020. The Xiamen-based carrier currently operates 181 aircraft, which comprises: 145 narrowbodies, including 11 Boeing 737-700s,130 737-800s and four 757-200s; 10 widebodies, including six 787-8s and four 787-9s; and 26 aircraft operated by subsidiaries Hebei (21) and Jiangxi (5) airlines. XiamenAir reported a 2017 first-half net profit of CNY766 ($117m), up 6% over net income of CNY723m in the year-ago period. First-half operating revenue jumped 20.4% year-over-year (YOY) to CNY12.3b.<br/>