Thousands of passengers’ journeys were rattled this summer when their flights were cancelled following strikes and walkouts by Ryanair pilots and cabin crews across Europe. On the 12thof September the largest in Europe budget airline had a one-day walkout organised by German pilots and cabin crewand it affected around 150 out of 400 flights; then, on the 28thof September, a co-ordinated walkout by a number of unions in Europe caused 250 flights to be cancelled, affecting around 40,000 passengers.
In this case – passengers are entitled to be compensated, according to the regulation EC 261/2004, which indicates compensation for passengers if their flight was delayed for more than three hours, or was cancelled, or they were denied boarding.
Interestingly, at the same time when the rain of claims bursted out, Ryanair announced the termination of its contract with AviationADR – complaint resolution body approved by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) that helps people resolve their claims when the airline is not collaborating.
Trying to avoid unpleasant outcomes, Ryanair representative spreads the message that courts from several other countries, like Spain and Italy, have already ruled to the advantage of the airline stating that these strikes were indeed an extraordinary circumstance. This was announced in hopes that the UK courts will follow the example of the other European countries.
Fortunately for the Ryanair employees, collective labour agreements were signed with European unions, meaning that wages and benefits of the airline’s workers are going to be covered.
However, this incident has not yet resolved in a way that is just to the passengers. Because of the refusal to compensate for cancelling their services that left hard-working families with disrupted holiday plans, CAA claims it is only fair to fight Ryanair for the people until the airline decides to do the right thing and pay out their passengers the compensations.
FlightClaimEU – a company operating in many European countries, like The Netherlands, Romania or Denmark, just to name a few – has won many cases against Ryanair and reached compensations for plenty of passengers that had experienced flight disruptions. Do not hesitate to claim your compensation for any disturbances related to your flight here and we will make sure to do everything possible to reach desired outcomes!