Ryanair's pilot scheduling problems, which last week forced the airline to cancel 2% of its flights for the next few weeks, have now led to cancellation of numbers of flights through next March, affecting 400,000 bookings.
The Irish-based discount airline has also dropped its bid to buy Italy's bankrupt Alitalia. "In order to focus on repairing this rostering problem this winter, Ryanair will eliminate all management distractions starting with its interest in Alitalia," the company said.
Ryanair said the original 315,000 cancellations were the result of a mistake in the way the airline calculated pilots' schedules. The airline attempted at first to overcome the problem by forcing or paying pilots to give up time off. However, long-term issues between company and pilots, combined with threatening remarks by Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary, put an end to that plan.
In the meantime, and before the Ryanair announcement, the Alitalia trustees extended the deadline for binding bids two weeks to October 16.
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