Ryanair strikes: What are your rights when your flight is cancelled?

Ryanair’s dismal summer continues. After hundreds of flights were cancelled due to striking air-traffic controllers, more than 100,000 passengers booked on peak summer holiday flights with the airline next week have been told their trips have been cancelled. The cause: coordinated 48-hour strikes by cabin crew in Belgium, Portugal and Spain next Wednesday and Thursday, 25 and 26 July.

Ahead of the stoppage, the airline has grounded 600 flights. In addition, pilots employed by Ryanair in Ireland are striking on Tuesday.

Ryanair, which is the biggest budget airline in Europe, recognised trades unions for the first time only last December, and claims it has worked constructively with a number of them since. But cabin crew across Europe say the airline has failed to negotiate on anything significant, and have issued a list of 34 demands, ranging from “predictable working hours” to “not being forced to open an Irish bank account”.

In addition pilots employed by Ryanair in Ireland are unhappy about a range of seniority issues and base transfers, and are dissatisfied with progress on their complaints.

That these strikes are unnecessary, and that Ryanair has done all it can “to avert this strike and the disruptions it will cause, including our many invitations to cabin crew unions to meet with us to resolve their issues”. But the chances of Ryanair backing down look remote; the airline also says: “We will defend our low fare business model because it is what gives our customers what they want more than anything else – the lowest fares in Europe.”

Ryanair tells me that everyone with a cancelled flight has been emailed and/or texted. If you haven’t been told your flight is cancelled, then there’s every chance that it will go ahead as normal – unless it’s a UK-Ireland flight next Tuesday, which may yet be affected by the pilots’ strike.

You will already have been emailed and offered three options:

1. A full refund, which no one in their right mind would take unless for some reason they’ve decided to cancel anyway.

2. Re-booking on Ryanair. That’s going to be a serious problem, because many flights are already fully booked.

3. The “Re-Route option”. Under European air passengers’ rights rules, if Ryanair can’t get you where you need to be on the day of your original flight or the following day, you can demand to be booked on a rival airline – again, if seats are available.

The Independent understands that some passengers have been told they may have to buy their own flights and try to claim the money back. Ryanair is legally responsible for booking these replacement flights, but if you can prove no other option was available and buy them yourself you should be able to reclaim the cost.

If they are not in a tearing hurry to get home, they can extend their holiday at Ryanair’s expense. Passengers whose flights are cancelled while they are on holiday are entitled to hotels and meals until the airline can get them home.

No. under the European air passengers’ rights rules, industrial action is generally classed as “extraordinary circumstances” – though it’s possible someone might challenge that ruling.

Most Ryanair flights even on these strike days will be going ahead. And if you proactively book an alternative flight, at a cost of many hundreds of pounds since it’s peak season, you won’t get a refund if your original flight goes ahead.

Its reputation took a bruising in the extraordinary pilots’ rosters debacle last autumn, which led to 20,000 flights being grounded and hundreds of thousands of passengers having their tickets cancelled. EasyJet says it is already benefiting from passengers switching away from Ryanair. While the chances are strong that your flight will go ahead as normal, passengers really don’t like uncertainty.