RYANAIR is cancelling 40-50 flights a day for the next six weeks, the Irish airline has announced.
Flight to the end of October will be affected to allow the airline to improve punctuality, which fell below 80 per cent in the first two weeks of September.
The cancellations account for two per cent of the airline's 2,500 daily flights.
The airline said strikes and weather disruptions had affected punctuality over peak summer months where it carried over 25million passengers.
The airline also said it had been impacted by increased holiday allocations to pilots and cabin crew as it moved to allocate annual leave during a nine-month transition period.
The airline’s holiday year, which is currently April to March, is now being moved to a calendar year from January 1, 2018.
"Ryanair has operated at record schedule and traffic levels during the peak summer months of July and August but has a backlog of crew leave which must be allocated before 31st Dec 2017 in order to switch to a calendar leave year, as required by the IAA, from 1st January 2018 onwards," the airline added.
It said the impact of ATC capacity restrictions in the UK, Germany and Spain, as well as French ATC strikes and thunderstorms have given rise to significant delays in recent weeks.
It is now reducing its flight schedule over the next six weeks by two per cent.
Apologising for the inconvenience, it said customers would be contacted directly and offered alternative flights or full refunds.
Ryanair’s Robin Kiely said: “We have operated a record schedule and traffic numbers during the peak summer months of July and August but must now allocate annual leave to pilots and cabin crew in September and October.
"By cancelling less than two per cent of our flying programme over the next six weeks, until our winter schedule starts in early November, we can improve the operational resilience of our schedules and restore punctuality to our annualised target of 90 per cent.
"We apologise sincerely to the small number of customers affected by these cancellations, and will be doing our utmost to arrange alternative flights and/or full refunds for them.”
