Ryanair has branded August as the worst month of the year for air traffic control disruption across Europe.
France, Spain and Germany were the biggest culprits as the no-frills carrier revealed that it suffered from 18,785 delayed flights last month – the worst so far this year.
However, just ten flights were cancelled against 547 in August last year when the carrier was battling a dispute with Irish pilots.
The fresh figures were released amid the latest phase of strike action by some UK pilots, with members of the British Airline Pilots Association involved in a third day of industrial action.
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Ryanair chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said: “Ryanair carried almost 15 million customers in August with over 93% of our 81,000 flights arriving on-time excluding ATC [air traffic control] delays.
“ATC staff shortages and disruptions have, yet again, had a huge impact across Europe – particularly in France, Spain and Germany.
“August was the worst month so far this year for ATC delays, but we are pleased to say we managed this well, and our punctuality excluding these ATC delays has risen both month-on-month and year-on-year.”
He added: “We’re very pleased that 86% of customers surveyed – over 131,000 – rated their Ryanair flight in August as ‘excellent/very good /good’ using Ryanair’s ‘rate my flight’ feature, which allows all customers to provide real-time reviews of their flights via the Ryanair app and email.
“We welcome this feedback, which encourages us to continuously improve our customer service.”
The airline claimed high ratings for crew friendliness (91%), onboard service (90%), range of food and drink (83%) and boarding (82%).