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Ryanair ‘plans to recruit 125 new pilots’ amid flight cancellation debacle Ryanair ‘plans to recruit 125 new pilots’ amid flight cancellation debacle
(35 minutes later)
Ryanair reportedly plans to recruit more than 100 new pilots within the next week or two. Ryanair reportedly plans to recruit more than 100 new pilots within the next two weeks as Europe’s largest low-cost airline battles to limit the damage of mass cancellations across its sprawling fleet.
Mass cancellation have plagued the airline in recent days, due to a flight crew shortfall which the company has described as a temporary problem caused by “messing up” an administrative change to the calendar. The airline earlier this week announced that it plans to scrap 2,100 flights over the next six weeks, due to a crew shortfall which the company has described as a temporary problem caused by “messing up” an administrative change to the calendar.
On Thursday, Sky News reported that Ryanair plans to hire 125 new pilots "within the next week or two". On Thursday, Sky News reported that Ryanair now plans to hire 125 new pilots "within the next week or two".
According to a letter seen by the BBC, pilots' representatives at 30 of the 86 Ryanair bases are asking the management in Dublin for a new deal to help “stop the large number of colleagues who are leaving for ‘greener pastures’”. Several Ryanair pilots have contacted The Independent with their accounts of the causes and consequences of the issue in recent days, with one saying that online groups are forming and “unifying to get Ryanair to make improvements”. 
More follows… Unlike other airlines, Ryanair is avowedly non-unionised, with an unusual arrangement whereby some pilots are indirectly contracted through limited companies.
Speaking at the company’s annual general meeting on Thursday, chief executive Michael O’Leary said that the group is now planning to reclaim one week of its pilots' holidays to prevent any further flight cancellations.
He said that those due to take a four-week block of holiday in the next few months because of that change in annual leave rotas would be told to cut that to three weeks.
Mr O’Leary said that the pilots will get the other week back in January.
He also said that Ryanair does not require the agreement of the pilots to take back the leave, and said that all the cancellations would likely cost the airline about €25m (£22m).
Since Mr O’Leary became chief executive of Ryanair in 1994, it has grown rapidly to become the biggest budget airline in Europe — and by far the most profitable.
On Wednesday, Ryanair announced its 87th base, at Bourgas on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria.
The airline also said that 175,000 of the 315,000 passengers affected by the mass cancellations have been rebooked on alternative Ryanair flights.