(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Ryanair plunged deeper into crisis yesterday with the cancellation of more flights that threatened the travel plans of another 400,000 customers, while the low-cost airline dropped its bid for Italy's Alitalia.
The Dublin-based carrier has been plagued by a pilot shortage that has forced it to axe thousands of flights and has now extended cancellation plans to early 2018.
Ryanair plans to fly 25 fewer aircraft during its winter schedule, hitting less than 1% of its customers but more than doubling the amount of passengers originally affected by a crisis plaguing the Irish no-frills airline since mid-September.
In addition, it will operate 10 fewer aircraft from April 2018, further affecting its growth plans.
The latest move will 'eliminate all risk of further flight cancellations, because slower growth creates lots of spare aircraft and crews across Ryanair's 86 bases this winter, it said in a statement.
Taking more flights out of service means that Ryanair will be able to 'roster all of the extra pilot leave necessary in October, November and December.
It also plans to roll out a series of seat sales for winter 2017 as it is 'confident that there will be no further roster related cancellations.
And the airline sprang another surprise with the withdrawal of its bid to buy Italian carrier Alitalia, after announcing a non-binding offer in July.
'In order to focus on repairing this rostering problem this winter, Ryanair will eliminate all management distractions starting with its interest in Alitalia, it said in a statement.
'We have notified the Alitalia bankruptcy commissioners that we will not be pursuing our interest in Alitalia or submitting any further offers for the airline.
Meanwhile, yesterday's fresh batch of cancellations will affect 34 routes, including London-Belfast, Hamburg-Oslo and Bucharest-Palermo.
'While over 99% of our 129mn customers will not have been affected by any cancellations or disruptions, we deeply regret any doubt we caused existing customers ... about Ryanair's reliability, or the risk of further cancellations, said chief executive Michael O'Leary.
He added: 'We sincerely apologise to those customers who have been affected by last week's flight cancellations, or these sensible schedule changes announced yesterday.
Ryanair had already canned 2,100 flights in the six weeks to the end of October as it struggled with landing planes on time, reportedly mainly owing to a shortage of pilots.
Weather issues and strikes have also hampered the group's performance.
The cancellations jeopardised the travel plans of 315,000 customers, but the carrier has now been forced to more than double the number of passengers affected.
Ryanair yesterday said it had e-mailed all passengers hit by the latest cancellations, offering them alternative flights or a full refund. They have also received a 40 euro travel voucher.
There was no immediate indication of how costly the latest cancellations would be to the company.
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