Ryanair to fly 25 fewer planes a day from November to March

Ryanair, Europe's biggest low-cost carrier that flies to Luxembourg, will ground 25 aeroplanes from November 17 to March 18 as it continues to deal with a backlog of staff holidays.

There are fewer than "400,000" passengers booked on the affected flights, and "many" have no bookings, Ryanair said in a statement.

People whose travel plans have been disrupted were emailed by the company, which has offered alternative flights or full refunds. 

They also received a €40 voucher (€80 for return bookings) to book any Ryanair flight between October and March, the company said.

Under Irish Aviation Authority rules, the Dublin-based company had to complete a nine-month annual leave transition period.

It said the current holiday backlog would be cleared by January 1.

Ryanair will schedule almost 40% of its annual pilot leave requirement for 2018 in the first quarter of next year to avoid a recurrence of the problem.

It said on September 17 that it expected to cancel 40-50 flights daily over six weeks.

That impacted 315,000 passengers.

The carrier operates the return routes of Luxembourg-Porto, Luxembourg-Madrid, Luxembourg-Milan and Luxembourg-London Stansted.

The company will fly 10 fewer aircraft from April, it said.

(Alistair Holloway, alistair.holloway@wort.lu, +352 691 487 739)