Ryanair passengers have been thrown into chaos with holiday plans potentially thwarted for many.
A whopping 400 flights have been cancelled today, Tuesday June 6, due to staff walkouts in France, the budget airline shared according to The Daily Mail.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary took to Twitter to address the cancellations of so many flights.
The airline’s official account shared a video of Michael O’Leary alongside the caption: “Again today, we’ve had to cancel 400 flights, all of these have been cancelled because of the French ATC strikes.
“The majority of these flights are overflights and are not going to France.”
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Speaking from Ryanair’s Dublin operations centre, the group CEO explained that the airline had to cancel around 400 flights of the 3,200 scheduled to operate today, all due to the latest French ATC strike.
He shared that the “vast majority” of cancelled flights are over flights, not going to France.
Instead, these will be going from Britain to Spain, Portugal to Germany, and Italy to Ireland.
This could see plans scuppered for Britons with plans to get away today for some sun.
The boss shared that while Ryanair “respects the strikes”, he believes that it should be local flights or French-domestic flights that get cancelled.
He said: “They have alternatives. The French can take the TGV, they can take the motorways, but the people flying across France are having their flights unnecessarily cancelled because the European commission led by Ursula von der Leyen will not take action.”
He shared that last week Ryanair submitted a petition signed by over 1.1 million “very fed up customers” calling for the commission to insist that France protects over flights during French ATC strikes.
Spain, Italy and Greece already protect these over flights, so that when their ATC go on strike, the over flights are not disrupted, the boss stated.
He said that while Ryanair respects the right to strike, it should be national flights that are cancelled.
According to Michael, it is “absolutely indefensible” for flights from Ireland to Italy, Poland to Portugal and Spain to Germany to be cancelled “simply because the French want to prioritise their domestic flights”. He wants to stop family holidays being “destroyed” needlessly.
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