Heads begin to roll in Ryanair cancellation shambles

Scandal-hit budget airline Ryanair said its chief operations officer will leave the company at the end of the month as the fallout from the bungling of pilots’ holiday continues.

Michael Hickey will depart amid a crisis that has seen 715,000 customers’ flights cancelled due to a rostering error.

Mr Hickey’s job was to schedule the pilots’ shifts.

That job is now in the hands of Ryanair’s chief people officer Edward Wilson.

Announcing Mr Hickey’s departure, the firm’s embattled chief executive Michael O’Leary said:  ‘Over the past 30 years Mick Hickey has made an enormous contribution to Ryanair, especially the quality and safety of our engineering and operations functions. 

‘He will be a hard act to replace.’ 

Hickey joined Ryanair as an engineer in 1988 when the airline was far from the dominant carrier it is today and became Director of Engineering in 2000 before taking over as Chief Operations Officer three years ago.

Ryanair said it would start the process of identifying and recruiting a successor and that Hickey would hand over his responsibilities over the next three weeks.

Mr Hickey (centre in the pink shirt) will depart amid a crisis that has seen 715,000 customers’ flights cancelled due to a rostering error. Mr Hickey’s job was to schedule the pilots’ shifts

After the cancellations sparked customer outrage and a wave of negative media coverage across Europe, Ryanair has been scrambling to appease its pilots and promised them significant improvements in pay and conditions on Thursday.

Ryanair has said reports it had a pilot shortage were false and that less than 260 of its 4,200 pilots had left so far this year amid some being poached by rival Norwegian Air Shuttle .

In a separate statement on Friday, it said it had hired 210 new pilots in the past 12 weeks, bringing to 822 the number who have joined since the start of the year.