Ryanair is facing enforcement action by the airline regulator over its refusal to compensate passengers for flight disruption caused by staff taking strike action.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said the low-cost airline has rejected compensation claims and has now ended its agreement with AviationADR - a CAA-approved body for alternative dispute resolution of passenger complaints.
The CAA said it does not believe the strikes are "extraordinary circumstances", as Ryanair has claimed, and are therefore not exempt, meaning its customers should be compensated.
READ MORE: Glasgow Airport wins back four Ryanair routes
Ryanair's flights were hit by widespread strikes over the summer by the carrier's pilot and cabin crews, while it also suffered amid the industry-wide air traffic control industrial action that saw thousands of flights cancelled across Europe.
The CAA said passengers with an existing claim will now have to wait until the outcome of its enforcement action against the airline.
The watchdog has made repeated calls for Ryanair to compensate passengers affected by staff strikes.
READ MORE: Ryanair crisis hits thousands of Scottish passengers
While airlines can refuse to pay out for "extraordinary circumstances", such as bad weather or air traffic controller strikes, they must pay compensation for disruption caused by strikes held by its own employees.
Ryanair warned over profits in October after it was stung by strike action, combined with higher oil prices.
Ryanair has seen the strike action knock passenger confidence in the company, revealing in October that passengers made fewer forward bookings into the third quarter, including for the October school half-term and Christmas.
Since the summer of severe disruption, Ryanair has been securing a series of agreements with unions across Europe over wages and benefits.
The latest was announced on Tuesday, with German pilots' union VC.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel