Ryanair announce they will be cancelling up to 50 flights a day for the next six weeks

The company had already cancelled 82 flights for Friday 15 September, and another 80 for Saturday 16 September.

Across the European network, 17 of those 162 flights cancelled were from Irish routes. Further more, the company expect to cancel between 40 and 50 flights every day for the next six weeks. This is due to their work calendar switching from April-March to January-December, as well as increased holiday days to their pilots and cabin crew. In their official statement, the company said: "Ryanair has operated at record schedule and traffic levels during the peak summer months... but has a backlog of crew leave which must be allocated before December 31st 2017." "Ryanair’s on-time performance has declined from 90% to under 80% over the past two weeks, a figure that is unacceptable to Ryanair and its customers." "By reducing its scheduled flying programme over the next six weeks by less than 2% (of its over 2,500 daily flights), the airline will create additional standby aircraft which will help restore on-time performance to its 90% average." “Ryanair apologises sincerely for the inconvenience caused to customers by these cancellations." All affected customers are expected to be contacted directly and are due to offered alternative flights or a full refund.