RYANAIR the low-cost budget airline is cancelling more than 600 flights to and from Europe including Spain, Portugal and Belgium due to commence on July 25th, and 26th as pilots and cabin crew prepare to strike. A press release sent out by the company last Wednesday said that they are believed to have contacted over 100,000 passengers as a warning to give them 7 days' notice that the flight which have been pre-paid for will no longer be available due to these circumstances. The low-cost carrier released a statement cancelling 16 routes that amounting to “300 of 2,400 daily flights" due for Wednesday and Thursday, July 25 and 26 “as too minimise the disruption caused to their customers from unnecessary strikes by cabin crew". It is estimated that around about 50,000 passengers due to fly have all been contacted by text/email, and will be affected by these strike actions. Ryanair has also said that their customers would be able to claim a full refund for lost flights or be offered alternative flights due to the chaos caused, this is calculated to be approximately 13% of the airline's total flight traffic. The strikes first started by the Irish pilots, now are three days into the strikes and are followed by a two-day cabin crew strike which is one of the busiest weeks of the year in air travel as all British schools have broken up for summer break. Many holidaymakers who are due to fly back on these dates are finding themselves rebooking return journeys with other carriers trying to get home.

The UK's most popular destination is still Spain for holidaymakers looking for the sun and beautiful beaches, these will see the most cancellations of all, with approx. 200 flights daily, whilst a further 50 flights will be cancelled to Portugal and also to Belgium. The cabin crew are looking for better rights to include sick pay and also put an end to over-inflated sales targets that they need to achieve. The crew have said that “the targets are set so high by the airline and are totally unreachable as they don't want us to achieve them, so we can´t relax". Sales are from in-flight trolley services, perfumes, (food and drink), scratch cards, plus duty-free and gift goods. Inflight sales make up a large part of the low-cost carriers revenue of £1.5 billion which calculates to 26% of the airline's total figures, the company have known to say that they are looking to increase the sales to about 30% in the next coming year.Ryanair's CEO Michael O'Leary said in a statement: “that the strikes are unnecessary and if they continue they may damage our customer confidence in the airline and will probably affect a few country markets which will lead to us reviewing our winter schedules. This, in turn, may lead to reductions to the fleet and inevitably lead to job losses."

The budget airline which flies to 37 countries, has 86 bases around Europe, 2,000 daily flights, over 13,000 employees and so far carried over 130million passengers over the last year. Pilots in Britain and in Italy which are two of the largest markets for the low-cost airline have signed a new agreement.Ryanair's Kenny Jacobs Chief Marketing Officer said: “Ryanair sincerely apologises to all our customers for any inconvenience and disruption that it may have caused but we have tried our very best to avoid it".