On May 8, 2010, 19 airports in northern Spain were closed due to renewed activity from the world's favorite volcano.
However, flights to most other airports in Spain went ahead as scheduled. Unless you happen to have been flying with Ryanair.
For example, easyJet flight EZY5481 to Madrid, due to depart from London Stansted at 18.05 that evening, took off as expected. But Ryanair flight FR5372, on the same route and due to depart just three hours later, was canceled.
Now, why is that?
I've contacted Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara to get a comment for you, but sadly I don't expect a reply. Mr McNamara has been in a sulk with me for the past few months and, despite it being he who started the contact between my site and his company, will no longer answer my emails, citing the fact that Ryanair doesn't communicate with web journalists (anymore). That's right, Ryanair DOT COM doesn't recognise the credentials of web journalists. I can only apologise on his behalf.
So I am left to speculate as to why Ryanair's flights are all canceled when other airlines' are not. At present I can only think of two possible explanations:
- Ryanair cares more about its passengers' safety than other airlines do. It also has more sophisticated meteorological equipment than other airlines and European meteorology experts. Other airlines are risking their passengers' lives by flying, Ryanair is the only one responsible enough to ground its flights.
- Ryanair makes more from not flying than from flying. As most passengers will not claim their money back, Ryanair can assume that the amount of compensation they will need to give to grounded passengers will not exceed the amount they will save on fuel and other costs involved in flying their planes. Unlike other airlines, Ryanair doesn't pay its staff when the plane doesn't take off. Furthermore, Ryanair receives subsidies from European governments, even if the flight is grounded. So the airline is using the ash cloud as an excuse to not fly to make a little extra profit out of disrupting passengers' plans.
What do you think is the reason Ryanair has grounded flights when other airlines have not? Do you have another hypothesis to add? Leave your comment below.
See also: Ryanair Charges - how to avoid paying extra with Ryanair
Update Ryanair responds! With a dubious 'no comment' designed to look like it is my question that is at fault, not Mr McNamara's answer. I shall quote him in his entirety:
"That is potentially the most stupid question I have ever received. You show your complete lack of knowledge of the situation and the airline industry - which is why we ignore bloggers. Grow up Damian."
Mr McNamara's refusal to co-operate echoes his response to me when I pressed him on why passengers who paid for priority boarding on his aircraft were not receiving the service they were expecting. You can read more here: Ryanair Priority Boarding.
Oh come on, you don’t honestly believe it’s no.1 do you?
Does seem bit penny pinching somewhere?
We left home at 4am this morning at this time our flight was shown ‘as scheduled’ by BAA Edinburgh yet when ourselves and many others started to queue at check in (board at this time did not show any problems) one Ryanair girl at check in dest told us Tenerife and Alicante flights cancelled and to rebookGreat customer service – NOT !!!!
Malaga to Leeds (FR2447) says canceled. I got an email says rebook for free, website did not work, a hour or two later I rebooked with all the information, got to the last page AND…… They want 700 euro’s to proceed.
I then go to phone them, 0871 246 0000 is closed saturdays and emergency 0905 566 0000 is offline.
Any tips, on rebooking a flight or what to do next?
A head of communications refusing to communicate? And he says YOU don’t understand the situation! Funny! Kettle calling the pot black, if ever I saw it!
I’ve read Stevo’s comments to the press before. I won’t worry, Damian, he’s as antagonistic in the print media as he is with you. He’s not a press releases man, he’s a propagandist. Pure and simple!
I stopped flying Ryanair years ago. This latest event just confirms my suspicions.
Could it be that Mr Ryanair is finally running out of cash? All other flights into Alicante on the routes that he flys have operated normally ( up until now 17:42 local time).
Am not a fan of Ryanair but sincerely hope this is not the case, as this would have a profound knock-on effect on the travelling public and many other businesses in the travel industry.
Is it not surely up to each individual airline to decide whether they want to fly or not? I’m sure most passengers will try and get a refund for the ticket at the very least, so not too sure about that theory.
A childish response from Ryanair, as expected, however they have in the past few weeks been pretty pro-active at just blanket cancelling any flights they’ve suspected may not be allowed fly, rather than having a will they/won’t they uncertainty. The claim made was that it allows passengers to know for sure whether their flight will or won’t go and rebook accordingly. So, it may just be that they’re not sure, like a few weeks back, and are just cancelling it now rather than have everyone wait only to cancel it later – this way, everyone knows now the flight’s not going and can just go and replan. Meanwhile, pax on the other airlines may well turn up later only to be sent back home again. Just a thought.
WOW, he really wrote that? What kind of professional is he?
Just another item to add to my long list of reasons I hate Ryanair.
Andy (no ‘P’ – what’s with all the ‘A’s today?!) – I considered that point but ruled it out. Iberia have told me that the ash cloud WILL NOT reach Madrid. I’m guessing they know which way the wind is going, etc.
Kirstie – Do you have all of these reasons on your list? http://gospain.about.com/od/ryanair/tp/why_hate_ryanair.htm
Even if Ryanair really thinks you should grow up, they could have at least responded, knowing full well that you would write this blog and put the seeds of this rumour in people’s minds (even if it does prove to be wrong).
They must have a press release ready for this kind of question. They must do. Right?
Or maybe your theory is correct. I mean, Sat, Sun, Mon are the busiest days for flying, which is why they cost so much. Chances are these flights are almost full already. But Tues and Weds flights – these are the ones that are always empty, hence the 99p flights.
So, Ryanair sells you a 100 quid flight to fly on Saturday and then has a good excuse to then bung all of them on the 99p flights later in the week. It’s genius! I’m not even being sarcastic. I think it’s these sorts of smart business moves are the nearest thing we have to innovation today.
All I’m saying is that Ryanair are fooling no-on with their childish response.
We know what you’re doing Ryanair. We’re watching you.
I don’t believe either theory 1 or 2 – 1 is obviously not possible and 2 is too much like a conspiracy theory for my liking.
But I am at a loss to think of a 3rd possibility.
Which is why I am thoroughly disgusted that Ryanair refused to explain themselves. Pathetic little dickheads, the lot of them.
Maybe I’m just and old Scottish cynic BUT a company does not make £248 million without being very astute.
I do not like Ryanair business practices but flights from Edinburgh to Tenerife have left little choice since Globespan went under.
It beggars belief that it took 30 seconds to pay for the Ryanair flight that they cancelled and I have to wait 30 days to get my refund!!! Great one sided customer care
It also cost over £100 more to rebook the cancelled flights – hardly customer focused
Ok I was supposed to fly from Brussels South-Charleroi today at 13.30 to Faro in Portugal. The flight got cancelled. I started looking at other airports in the region (I live in Luxembourg) and discovered that flights from Frankfurt and Luxembourg airports actually managed to get to Portugal and Faro today. Why couldn’t Ryanair manage? My theories were: 1) would have to pay additional money for doing some kind of detour to avoid the ash cloud or 2) didn’t want to deal with the risk. I made the mistake of booking a new flight for tomorrow 6.30 AM from Frankfurt Hahn (not to be mistaken with normal Frankfurt airport) with Ryanair. And now I’m stressed at home waiting to see whether it gets cancelled or not. I later realised that I could have booked a ticket with TAP from Lux, as the price is practically the same without lengthy trip to a budget airport! I’m so glad sb wrote about this issue in the blogosphere.
our Ryanair flight from alicante was canceled at 8am today. All other airlines including easy were still flying. Next available flight was Tuesday !!!
We caught train to Barcelona and flew easyJet at 14.30.
Can we claim for train ticket to Barcelona and easyJet ticket?
I have been flying light aircraft for seven years. I’m no meteorologist, but my pilot friends and I – include one 737 pilot – have been discussing this very issue today and we cannot for the life of us understand why Ryanair has stopped flying and everyone else has carried on.
Mr McNamara, we would like an explanation!
me and the enemy are booked to fly to alicante from bristol at 11 am sunday so fingures crossed?
(Sigh)
What can one say? Ryanair? Lyingair more like it.
I might email Ryanair and ask for an explanation myself.
Hey, interesting article. It shows how easily aviation regulatory authorities can be hoodwinked. An airline cannot cancel a scheduled flight for commercial reasons, like not having a good passenger load etc. That is plane illegal. The regulatory authority should seek an explanation fro the airline for this.
I’m from India, but the rules that come with a scheduled operator’s permit are almost the same in most parts of the world. If an airline believes in cancelling flights to suit its balance sheets, then it should call itself a non-scheduled operator and advertise likewise…we fly, only when we our planes full. They should not be allowed to mislead the passenger. A scheduled airline is one which honors a schedule.. in fact, airlines have flown empty aircrafts at the scheduled hour on the scheduled route to abide by that rule.
This is only adding to the MULTIPLE reasons why i dont even consider flying with them, they are a bunch of you know what…
Hoping to fly back to East Midlands on 8th May, arrived at Malaga airport to see all ryanair flights canceled, just as they are calling BMI Baby passengers for last check in! Had to book with BMI Baby to Birmingham £200 each. Turns out that the airspace was clear if the planes flew at 36,000 feet which of course adds more time to the flights and uses more fuel. At least BMI Baby made an effort. Note to self: Mark Ryanair emails as junk
Budget airlines have been manipulating demand through price changes for years. This is precisely what their business model is based on – lower prices at times of low demand, high prices at high demand. This is known as elasticity of demand.
Most leisure travelers are able to pick their travel dates to suit the price. What Ryanair noticed some years ago is that someone *already on holiday* does not have so much elasticity of demand. They NEED to get
home. This is why Ryanair routinely denies boarding to so many people. We’ve all read about them saying someone’s ticket print-out was too faint, or the hoop-jumping they require for non-EU passport holders – this is all designed to force you to rebook, because they know that you NEED to fly home.
But this time, they’ve hit upon a jackpot! Cancel ALL flights to a country! Save money on fuel. Save money on staffing. Receive government funding nonetheless. Offset that with a few compensation claims (many of them will get lost in the post, as always happens with Ryanair claims) and – voila! – you have a nice little money earner.
It is shocking they’re allowed to get away with this.
Today all Norwegian flights from Oslo to Malaga departed as normal. All Ryan Air flights have been cancelled. Same route, more or less same time. Backs up your argument.
Just to clarify “Norwegian” as in the Airline.
In the local press, El Punt from Barcelona, they ran a story a few days ago to the effect that in total over a 10 year period Eireflot will receive fully 25m € in direct subsidy from the airport which the leprechaun pretends is Barcelona but which (almost) everyone else knows is Reus.
Just one airport. 25m €
Capitalism with a hefty dose of state subsidy.
“The no class airline.”
I have been told the reason is because Ryanaire fly higher than any other airline (as the higher they fly the less fuel they use therefore cheaper) and because of this they are more at risk from the ash cloud than other airlines.
Ryanair, cancelled Alicante flight when all other airlines flew out of Edinburgh. When checking with BAA EDin. aircraft was there just cancelled! What reason? Dont know! Flight going somewhere else? Definately! When calling Ryanair kept on line for 27 mins at 10p/min answer message you will be attended to in 7 mins every 2 mins,after £2.70 cut me off. Now I’m getting angry after spending arou nd £5. Where are they when we need answers, if everyone on the flight spent £5.00 each trying to get a response from them no wonder they dont fly when they make a fortune on calls. Hidden charges again Ryanair!!!!!
I have now received a quote from the National Air Traffic Service in the UK on what happened at the weekend: http://gospain.about.com/b/2010/05/12/ryanair-cancels-flights-for-commercial-reasons.htm
Damian, same happened to us, flight from Weeze to Malaga on May 8th was canceled Next available flight Tuesday may 11, which was no option for us. But when we got home and looked at the internet we discovered all other airlines were flying to malaga.
We were lucky that there were still 5 seats free and we rebooked at considerable extra costs with Vueling and left the same evening from Schiphol.
What kind of compensation can i ask for? They will refund, but i would like to get the travel costs to and from Weeze and the extra costs i had to pay to the other airline.
Any advise?
Thanks, Robert
Hi Robert,
I suggest you take Ryanair to court, or make a formal complaint to the Dutch “trading standards” office, as we call them in the UK.
Any direct compensation claim for these things will be ignored.
You get what you pay for!
I’m a huge fan of Ryanair with whom I regularly fly to places today for a fraction of the price of years ago. Provided you accept the absence of bells, whistles and above average service, Ryanair is great.
They employ fewer ground personnel per passenger seat than any other airline in Europe which is one of several reasons why their tickets cost so little.
I agree they should have more efficient communications but that would mean more staff and… higher prices. When things go wrong, they are dreadful but, then again, this is reflected in the ticket price.