RYANAIR WARNS FLIGHTS DELAYED 'ACROSS NETWORK' ON MONDAY, JULY 29

Ryanair has warned passengers that their flights could be delayed on Monday. The airline said it was experiencing issues "across the network" due to staff shortages in air traffic control across Europe.

It said the delays were "unacceptable", but beyond its control. While it apologised to passengers, it hit out at the "repeated" delays, which it blamed on "mismanagement" of air traffic control services.

It said: "Ryanair apologises to its passengers for the excessive flight delays caused by European ATC staff shortages today Mon 29 Jul which are affecting all European airlines. ATC services, which have had the benefit of no French ATC strike disruption this summer, continue to underperform (despite flight volumes being 5% behind 2019 levels) with repeated 'staff shortages'.

"On Mon 29 Jul, 17% of Ryanair’s first wave departures (97 of 582 aircraft) were delayed due to ATC 'staff shortages'. These repeated flight delays due to ATC mismanagement are unacceptable. We apologise to our passengers for these repeated ATC flight delays, which are deeply regrettable but beyond Ryanair’s control."

In a statement earlier this month, the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations (IFATCA) said it had "long highlighted the need for maintaining and increasing staffing levels in the cyclical and rapidly growing aviation industry, drawing attention from stakeholders such as the European Commission and individual States".

It added: "IFATCA has relentlessly emphasised the risks and negative consequences on the Network’s performance due to inadequate or delayed recruitment, inconsistent financial policies, excessive lobbying, and cost-cutting regulations on essential services. Indeed, the Single European Sky Performance Scheme has led to short-term measures by States and Air navigation service providers, which have reduced the number of staffing, delayed the needed investment to modernise the sometimes outdated infrastructure and jeopardises the transition to a digital infrastructure.

"Further, the Performance Scheme has not evolved and increases fragmentation in the provision of air traffic services. After more than 10 years of existence, the interdependencies of the Key Performance Areas (KPA) is still not measured and leads to a weak compartmentalised approach to managing the performance.

"Today, the European Air Traffic Control (ATC) System faces multiple challenges – a faster-than-predicted recovery of traffic post-COVID-19, high seasonal demand for holiday destinations, airspace restrictions due to security concerns, increased demand for staff availability and flexibility, an ageing air traffic workforce and an ongoing training wave of the new generation of air traffic control officers (ATCOs)."

It also said: "IFATCA acknowledges the constraints of the current ATC system and calls for a round table of all stakeholders to develop sensible, professionally and operationally driven solutions to protect and enhance the European Network for the benefit of the European aviation industry and its staff. These solutions have existed for years but require strong political support to be further developed and implemented."

2024-07-29T11:03:55Z dg43tfdfdgfd