Ryanair flights between Aberdeen and holiday hotspots in Spain and Portugal are unaffected by a swathe of cancellations which have left thousands of passengers stranded across its route network.
The budget airline – under intense pressure from passengers and consumer groups – yesterday issued a statement spelling out which services will suffer the impact of an administrative wrangle over the next six weeks.
Recently launched routes from the Granite City to Malaga, Alicante and Faro were not on the list, leaving north-east customers relieved their travel plans will not be disrupted.
And a spokeswoman for Aberdeen International Airport confirmed Ryanair services from the terminal were “operating as normal”.
Dublin-based Ryanair faces a compensation bill of up to £17.7million for the fiasco after it was forced to shelve up to 50 flights daily.
Michael O’Leary, the airline’s flamboyant chief executive, said: “Clearly there’s a large reputational impact for which again I apologise. We will try to do better in future.
“In terms of lost profitability, we think it will cost us something of the order of up to about five million euros (£4.4million) over the next six weeks.
“In terms of the EU261 (statutory) compensation, we think that will be something up to a maximum of 20million euros (£17.7million) but much depends on how many of the alternative flights our customers take up.”
Mr O’Leary said customers whose flights have been cancelled would receive an e-mail by yesterday evening telling them what services they can transfer to.
Under EU law, passengers given less than 14 days notice of a flight cancellation are entitled to claim compensation worth up to £221 depending on the timing of alternative flights and if the issue was not beyond the responsibility of the airline, such as extreme weather. Mr O’Leary said: “If they’re not satisfied with the alternative flights offered they can have a full refund and they will all be entitled to their EU261 compensation entitlements. We will not be trying to claim exceptional circumstances. This is our mess-up. When we make a mess in Ryanair we come out with our hands up.”
He insisted the airline was not short of pilots, adding: “What we have messed up is the allocation of holidays.”
Asked if he believed he should lose his job, Mr O’Leary replied: “No, I don’t think my head should roll, I need to stay here and fix this.”
The routes affected include flights to and from Dublin, London Stansted, Barcelona, Lisbon, Madrid, Milan Bergamo and Porto.