Yahoo Finance Ryanair's treatment of flight cancellation passengers leaves CAA regulator 'furious'
The head of the Civil Aviation Authority is “furious” with Ryanair for misleading passengers repeatedly about their rights.
And Andrew Haines singled out the carrier’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, for particular criticism. Haines said the outspoken O’Leary was saying one thing and doing another.
The CAA has threatened Ryanair with legal action for “persistently misleading” passengers over what they can and cannot claim for, and what rights they have under EU law for alternative flights following the chaos of the cancellation crisis.
MORE: Ryanair axes another 18,000 flights hitting travel plans of 400,000 passengers
Haines, speaking to Radio 5Live, said it was “unacceptable” that Ryanair was disregarding the law and customers’ rights.
“When we heard Michael [O’Leary] in his press conference [last week], that he was not going to pay for other airlines, we were on the case straight away to him to say ‘that is not the legal position’, so they gave us clarification, promised to correct the information but they are not doing that adequately,” he said.
“In the law, we have to demonstrate there is a systematic failure to comply with the law, we can’t just take individual cases, my concern with Ryanair, and the reason we are speaking so openly, is they say one thing and yet they don’t follow it through.”
The CAA cited information on the carrier’s website that did not make clear, for example, that it should refund all expenses incurred as a result of the flight cancellation.
Those expenses include meals, hotels, as well as transfer costs to re-route passengers on other airlines when there is no suitable alternative.
MORE: Ryanair apologises for flight cancellation chaos with £40 voucher for passengers
Ryanair has been at the centre of a storm of bad publicity since the middle of the month when it announced more than 2,000 services would be axed up until the end of October, affecting 315,000 passengers.
Many travellers found out only hours before they were due to take off that their flight had been cancelled.
Ryanair said it had “messed up” pilot holiday rosters leaving it desperately short of cover. The situation took another turn for the worse earlier this week when it revealed another 18,000 flights, covering 34 routes, would be axed between November and March.
Grounding 25 aircraft would, it said, prevent any further “roster-related cancellations” – but it also meant 400,000 additional travellers would see their plans disrupted.
That saw headlines of “Ryanair cancels Christmas”.
MORE: 7 things you need to know about Ryanair’s cancelled flights
While the airline has promised to refund or compensate all those eligible under EU law, O’Leary made a point in an earlier press conference of saying that he would not pay for passengers to go on rival airlines.
In response to the CAA warning, Ryanair said: “We already comply fully with all EU261 legislation, are meeting with the CAA and will comply fully with whatever requirements they ask us to.”
Keith Hayward, a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, said the CAA has a pretty much “unlimited” set of fines it can levy against Ryanair.
