Ryanair flights: Airline ‘needs 1000 more pilots to keep on growing’

Ryanair needs to hire at least 1000 pilots every year, a quarter of its workforce, if it is to keep up with staff departures and maintain its growth, industry sources warned on Thursday.

Its pilot crisis is deepening with analysts suggesting it could cancel a further 18,000 flights between November and March, on top of services it has cancelled.

Industry sources say the so-called pilot attrition rate is much higher than Ryanair has admitted to, with 10% of captains and 10%-15% of first officers quitting each year.

The Irish Airline Pilots’ Association estimates the airline has 4058 pilots this year, while chief executive Michael O’Leary has said around 650 more pilots are arriving in the next few months. Analysts warned of turbulence for investors, who will see Ryanair’s very healthy profits hit by higher costs and slower growth.

Ryanair said: “In the current year less than 100 of over 2,000 captains left Ryanair and less than 160 First officers who have mainly left to join long haul airlines."

Its shares slipped more than 2% today to €16.74.

Although Ryanair is sticking to its annual profit guidance of €1.4 billion (£1.2 billion) to €1.45 billion, traffic growth is expected to be lower than it was the previous year.

Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital, said Ryanair was reaping what it had sown, after years of treating staff and passengers with “utter disdain”.

“Cost pressures are building, specifically staffing costs, and this threatens to eat into Ryanair’s big strategic advantage,” Wilson wrote.