Monthly Archives: March 2011

The budget airline Ryanair is introducing a 2 GBP/2 euros charge per passenger for all bookings made from Monday April 4^th to cover the cost of cancellations and delays “outside of its control”.

The airline said the extra revenue is needed to help it cover the extra €100 million costs it has suffered due to 15,000 flight cancellations and the subsequent compensation and legal expenses which have occurred.

These include the Icelandic volcano airspace closures, snow closures at many EU airports last winter and over 15 days of national ATC summer strikes, primarily in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain.

The airline said EU regulations which make airlines responsible for refunds, meals, hotels and phone calls during such events was ”unfair and discriminatory”.   And said that these expenses “cannot be loaded on to airlines without being passed on to passengers”.

They promised to reduce or drop the charge if the EU regulations are reformed to include effective right of recovery and non discriminatory “force majeure” clauses.

British Airways passengers could face months of travel chaos after their cabin crew yesterday voted for strike action that threatens to disrupt the Easter break and royal wedding.

The Unite union, which represents the majority of BA flight attendants, said the overwhelming vote to strike showed their ‘determination’ to continue the long-running dispute with 10,000 BA flight attendant members backing industrial action by 83% of those who cast a vote – on a turnout of 72%. But the 5,811 who voted ‘yes’ represent fewer than half of BA’s total 13,500 cabin crew, and six out of ten union members

The strike dates are yet to be announced, but the union must strike once within 28 days of yesterday’s vote and has to give at least seven days’ notice of any walkout. This means that the Easter break and the late May half term holiday are at risk from strike action that could run until mid-July.

This disagreement over cost-cutting began almost two years ago.  BA cabin crew carried out 22 days of strikes last year which cost the airline more than £150million.