Ryanair wants State to pay it ash 'compensation'
Airline demanding cash for closure of airspace
RYANAIR has submitted claims to both the Irish and UK governments for compensation for the disruption to its flight schedule from the closure of airspace due to the volcanic ash from Iceland.
Responding to a specific query on the matter from the Sunday Independent, the low-cost carrier confirmed it had already submitted what it termed "reimbursement claims" to both countries' administrations.
Outlining the case for compensation, a Ryanair spokesman said: "We will be seeking reimbursement of our losses and expenses from the Irish Government in line with the guidelines set out by EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas.
"The current regulations -- which impose an unlimited liability on airlines to compensate passengers for their expenses, when travel insurance companies, trains, ferries and bus providers pay nothing because it is an 'Act of God'/'Force Majeure' event -- are patently unfair and discriminatory.
"If the governments expect the airlines to reimburse these expenses, which were not caused by any fault of the airlines, then clearly the governments will have to reimburse the airlines. Ryanair has already submitted reimbursement claims to the Irish and UK governments."
Asked if Ryanair was in a position to quantify how much compensation it would be seeking from the two governments, the spokesman said simply: "It is impossible to quantify the costs of these unnecessary and unjustified airspace closures, because they are still continuing and therefore rising."
Any claim for compensation is likely to run into millions of euro, however, given the estimates of revenue lost on a daily basis at the height of the volcanic ash disruption last month. Ryanair estimated at the time that it was losing in the region of €6m a day while Aer Lingus put its losses at €4m a day.
Ryanair is notably anxious to draw a clear distinction between the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) and its UK counterpart, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), in attributing the blame for the ongoing closures of airspace.
On this, the Ryanair spokesman said: "In fairness to the IAA, it was the CAA and the London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) which produced these utterly useless and inaccurate volcanic ash/no-fly zone charts.
"The IAA had no choice but to act on these (inaccurate) charts. It has been evident for a number of weeks that these charts bear no relationship to the levels of ash which are clearly not in the airspace over Ireland, the UK or continental Europe."
The airline described European governments as being "hopelessly unprepared" for the volcanic ash eruptions of recent weeks, and the effect that they had on European airspace and air travel.
Commenting on this, the spokesman said: "Most European airlines have repeatedly called for Europe to move to a similar system as the US where they have frequent volcanic eruptions and where a no-fly zone of approximately 60-miles radius is established around an erupting volcano and thereafter airlines do not fly into visible clouds of volcanic ash.
"By contrast, over recent weeks the UK VAAC has been producing theoretical maps of big black non-existent volcanic ash concentrations over Ireland, the UK and much of continental Europe -- all of it thousands of miles away from the volcano in Iceland -- where thousands of flights by Europe's airlines have confirmed that there was no volcanic ash present in the atmosphere."
The low-cost carrier reiterated its call for European aviation authorities to move immediately to adopt the volcano response system used by the US.
- RONALD QUINLAN
Originally published in
