Ryanair is to introduce €2 levy to fund the cost of its obligations under EU law which state that airlines must cover the reasonable expenses of passengers delayed for reasons beyond an airline’s control.
Ryanair said it would introduce the levy on all bookings from next Monday. It said flight cancellations and delays to more than 15,000 flight affecting over 2.4 million passengers last year had cost it €100 million, money it now plans to recoup from its passengers.
The airline said the majority of claims were due to the Icelandic volcano airspace closures of April and May last year, the snow closures of many EU airports in November and December and over 15 days of national Air Traffic Controller (ATC) strikes in Belgium, France, Germany and Spain last summer.
The EU261 regulations state that airlines have to offer passengers affected by flight cancellations a refund or a rerouting on the next available flight and mandate that thaey are obliged to provide accommodation and refreshment for passengers who choose to be rerouted.
At the height of the ash crisis last year, a furioius Michael O’Leary described as “absurd” the legal obligations which European airlines have to passengers affected by cancelled flights.
He insisted that Ryanair would not cover the accommodation or food costs of passengers over and above the “original air fare paid by each passenger.” A day later he was forced into an embarrassing U-turn after bowing to pressure from passengers but the sting in the tale only became apparent yesterday afternoon.
“The EU261 regulations are clearly discriminatory in the way they are applied to airlines, by making airlines responsible for delays, cancellations and right of care expenses during force majeure events such as volcanic eruptions, the snow closure of airports and the frequent ATC strikes across Europe,” Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said.
He claimed that the company regretted imposing the levy but said that “the extraordinary costs which have been imposed on us by delays and cancellations under these discriminatory regulations must be recovered from passengers”.
The airline said it would help to defray costs which were not recoverable from Governments, ATC providers or airports. It said if the EU261 regulations were reformed, to include an effective right of recovery clause and a non discriminatory “force majeure” clause then it would reduce or eliminate the charge.
Mr McNamara said it was "clearly unfair that airlines are obliged to provide meals and accommodation for passengers (for days and weeks in some cases), simply because governments close their airspace, or air traffic controllers walk off the job, or incompetent airports fail to clear their runways of snow.