Passengers flying with Ryanair will be facing another month of travel misery as air traffic control strikes left more than 210,000 passengers facing flight cancellations in June.
The Dublin-based carrier said more than 1,100 flights were cancelled for the second month running due to air traffic control strikes over four weekends in June, as well as staff shortages in the UK, Germany and France.
This compared with just 41 cancellations in June last year. The low-cost airline repeated its call for action from Europe to help tackle disruption from the strikes.
Fellow airline easyJet has also revealed the impact of the strike woes in recent weeks, cancelling nearly 1,000 flights in May, as widespread thunderstorms also took their toll.
Air traffic control strikes are costly for airlines and hugely disruptive for passengers, especially in France, as many UK flights need to use the country’s airspace or fly longer routes to avoid it.
But ATC action has become a regular headache for the industry in recent years, with 2017 said to be a record for strikes, with 41 days affected.
Despite the strike action, Ryanair said it still flew 7% more passengers last month, at 12.6 million.
Its load factor – a measure of how well airlines fill their planes – remained unchanged at 96%.
