BUDGET airline Ryanair is cancelling up to 50 flights daily for the next six weeks after it “messed up” the planning of pilot holidays.

Kenny Jacobs, chief marketing officer, said the company was “working hard to fix” the problem, after it announced a 2 per cent reduction in scheduled flights until the end of October.

He said: “We apologise to all affected customers for these cancellations. We have messed up in the planning of pilot holidays and we’re working hard to fix that.”

Ryanair said air traffic control delays and strikes, bad weather and a backlog of annual leave to be taken by pilots and cabin crew had led to punctuality falling to below 80 per cent over the last two weeks.

A spokesman said this figure was “unacceptable” and the company has apologised to affected customers, who it said will be offered alternative flights or refunds.

Some customers said last-minute cancellations had left them out-of-pocket due to non-refundable accommodation costs, or with no choice but to book expensive alternative flights or transport.

Others said they had been left stranded in their holiday destination and many urged Ryanair to publish a list of all flight cancellations.

Ryanair said a change in the company’s holiday year, from April to March to a calendar year from January 1 2018, had seen an increase in holiday allocations as staff used their annual leave before the end of the year.

It said the 40 to 50 flight cancellations each day accounted for less than 2 per cent of its 2500 daily flights and it would create additional standby aircraft to help restore punctuality.