Ryanair has offered senior pilots who agree to work an additional 10 days a bonus of up to E12,000 in a bid to avoid additional passenger disruption after it canceled more than 2,000 flights over staffing issues. The Irish airline has been widely criticized by politicians and consumer groups since announcing on Friday plans to cancel between 40 and 50 flights per day in the weeks to Oct. 31. CE Michael O‘Leary said the cancellations were caused by a transition to a new system of allocating leave to pilots, but he denied suggestions from a pilot group that it has a deeper problem in hiring and retaining pilots. Ryanair Monday said it was preparing for up to E20m in compensation claims and E5m in lost fares as a result of the cancellations, although analysts estimated the total cost could be higher. It has also brought a wave of bad publicity for an airline which has worked hard over the past few years to improve a reputation for treating passengers badly.<br/>
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Airlines Condor and Eurowings plan to provide flights to the Caribbean from Duesseldorf, meeting demand from Germans seeking winter sunshine after cancellations by insolvent Air Berlin (AB1.DE). Air Berlin filed for bankruptcy protection in August after major shareholder Etihad pulled the plug on funding. It has been forced to scrap long-haul flights from its two bases of Duesseldorf and Berlin after a leasing company asked for its planes to be returned. Condor, part of Britain’s Thomas Cook Group, said it was starting flights to destinations in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Jamaica and Barbados from Duesseldorf from Nov. 1. Condor said it was leasing an A330 plane with crew in order to be able to offer the routes. The cancellation of the Air Berlin routes has left tour operators seeking an airline to take customers on package holidays that have already been booked. “We did all we could to find a solution as quickly as possible to keep holiday traffic in the air,” Condor CEO Ralf Teckentrup said. Lufthansa’s budget unit Eurowings said it would start flights to the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Mexico from Nov. 8, making Duesseldorf only the second airport from which it offers long-haul flights.<br/>
Saudi Arabian LCC startup flyadeal will launch with domestic flights to Riyadh, the Jeddah-based airline announced Sept. 19. Flyadeal will operate its inaugural flight Sept. 23, kicking off operations with twice-daily flights between the port city of Jeddah and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital and main financial hub. The launch date, which was previously announced, is significant because it is Saudi National Day, marking the anniversary of the establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Flyadeal also gave further details of its product, which will follow an “only pay for what you need” model.<br/>
Ryanair is still operating with about half the number of standby pilots it would normally rely on for its 2,000 flights a day, despite taking its abrupt decision to cancel flights for up to 400,000 passengers over the next six weeks. CE Michael O’Leary said Tuesday that the number of pilots on standby had fallen to 20-30 a day in early September, compared with its typical cover of 200. Its move to cancel up to 2,100 flights over the next six weeks has seen the number of standby pilots rise to more than 100 a day. “The problem was the first week in September it looked like we were running with standby coverage of 20-30 pilots a day and that wasn’t enough,” said Mr O’Leary. “The weekend before last, we were cancelling flights, we were running out of duty hours, we were taking big flight delays . . . that’s why we said we wouldn’t go through a second weekend like that.” O’Leary was forced to apologise on 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. Ryanair’s CE blamed its rostering system for failing to warn the airline that it did not have enough pilots on standby if there were unexpected problems, such as air traffic control strikes or bad weather. He said the airline was working out what the minimum number of standby pilots should be. It is also in the process of buying back leave from pilots.<br/>
Low-cost carrier Vietjet will begin flying between Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and Phnom Penh in Cambodia on Nov 24, the company announced. The Ho Chi Minh City-Phnom Penh route will have a daily round trip, with a flight time of 45 minutes per leg, the announcement statement said. The flight will depart Ho Chi Minh City at 5.35pm local time and arrive in Phnom Penh at 6.20pm. The return flight will leave Phnom Penh at 7.30pm and<br/>arrive in Ho Chi Minh City at 8.15pm. Currently, the airline has a fleet of 45 aircraft operating on 73 routes in Vietnam and across the region.<br/>