Ryanair leaves passengers fuming after massive cancellations

British budget carrier Ryanair has announced it will cancel hundreds of flights over the next six weeks due to a backlog of staff leave. While some reports put the number of flights cancelled at 40 or 50, Mail Online put the figure as high as 80 a day.

The budget airline says the measure is designed to improve punctuality, which has fallen below 80 per cent in the first two weeks of September.

The airline suddenly removed 160 scheduled services to destinations across Europe on Friday without any explanation, leaving holidaymakers furious.

Customers have reacted furiously to the cancellations, bombarding the airline with Tweets like ''I am beyond annoyed'' and ''holiday plans up in smoke''.

The airline is changing its internal calendar as part of increases in holiday allowances for pilots and cabin staff, which has contributed to the backlog.

Since the beginning of September the number of on-time arrivals has fallen below 80 per cent because of air traffic control strikes, restrictions on landing times and inclement weather conditions.

Ryanair also admitted that its staff have holiday leave that they must take by the end of the year as the airline moves to a new accounting system.

It means that dozens of flights every day across Europe will be cancelled without warning leaving holidaymakers stranded.

A Ryanair spokesperson said, ''We have operated a record schedule (and traffic numbers) during the peak summer months of July and August but must now allocate annual leave to pilots and cabin crew in September and October (while still running the bulk of our summer schedule).

''This increased leave at a time of ATC (air traffic control) capacity delays and strikes has severely reduced our on-time performance over the past two weeks to under 80 per cent. By cancelling less than 2 per cent of our flying programme over the next six weeks, (until our winter schedule starts in early November) we can improve the operational resilience of our schedules and restore punctuality to our annualised target of 90 per cent.

''We apologise sincerely to the small number of customers affected by these cancellations, and will be doing our utmost to arrange alternative flights and/or full refunds for them.''

If the airline cancelled 40 flights per day for six weeks at a load factor of 90 per cent, approximately 285,000 journeys would be affected, The Guardian calculates.

The Dublin-listed budget airline next week celebrates the fourth anniversary of its Always Getting Better campaign, which the chief executive, Michael O'Leary, has described as an effort to stop ''unnecessarily pissing people off''.

Europe's largest airline by passenger numbers sent emails to the first affected passengers on Friday, giving them the choice of a refund or an alternative flight.

The airline said it would waive a €40 (£35) surcharge normally levied to change flights.

However, a Reuters reporter, whose flight from Dublin to Barcelona on 18 September was cancelled on Friday, was offered a choice of a surcharge of €250 to take an earlier flight on the 18th or €60 to take a flight on 19 September.