Ryanair has confirmed that 1,100 flights were cancelled last month due to air traffic control strikes and staff shortages in the UK, Germany and France.
June was the second month of severe strikes affecting European airspace with more than 210,000 passengers hit by the cancellations.
The figures for June last year reveal that only 41 flights Ryanair were cancelled, according to ITV news.
Chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, said: “Regrettably, over 210,000 Ryanair customers had their flights cancelled in June because of four weekends of ATC (air traffic control) strikes and repeated UK, German and French ATC staff shortages.
“Ryanair calls for urgent action by the EU Commission and European governments to ameliorate the effect of ATC strikes and staff shortages in the UK, Germany and France from disrupting the travel plans of millions of Europe’s consumers this summer.”
Bad weather also affected flights throughout May, with EasyJet confirming that it had cancelled nearly 1,000 flights due to widespread thunderstorms.
In the same month, the pressure group Airlines for Europe (A4E) said: “There has been a 300 per cent increase in air traffic control strikes in France compared with the same period last year:”
Under European passengers’ rights rules, passengers whose flights are cancelled or heavily delayed are entitled to meals and accommodation until they can be flown to their destination – which may be on another airline if the cancelling carrier has no availability for several days.
Last month, Willie Walsh, the chief executive of British Airways’ parent company IAG, said that air traffic control strikes in Europe were a greater threat to airlines than rising fuel prices.
Walsh told an aviation summit in Sydney: “The thing most impacting is ATC strikes and the ongoing ATC environment, which is a mess. It is destroying traffic throughout Europe. We thought it would get better in 2018 but it’s getting worse.”
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