Ryanair adds more than ONE MILLION seats this winter – as BA cancels thousands

RYANAIR has added more than one million seats to its UK winter schedule.

Hours after British Airways axed thousands of flights across the next six months, the budget airline announced it was upping its passenger targets for 2022.

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Ryanair previously hoped to carry 165million people this year.

But this has been increased to 166.5m across 20 UK airports to offset further half-term and Christmas holiday misery.

CEO Michael O’Leary said: “While BA are cancelling eight per cent of their winter schedule due to staff shortages and ‘Hopeless Heathrow’s’ capacity restrictions, Ryanair is now adding more capacity to our largest ever UK winter schedule.

“It’s so that UK families can book with confidence that they will get to their low-fare city break and winter sun getaways without the risk of flight cancellations.”

Thousands of BA flights have been cancelled for the rest of the year, with getaways in October and over winter likely to be hit.

The flag carrier blames the passenger cap at Heathrow and lower-than-expected demand over the colder months.

A total of 629 short-haul round trips up to October 29 have been scrapped already after London’s busiest airport extended its 100,000 daily passenger limit due to staff shortages.

And around 5,000 short-haul flights from Heathrow, Gatwick and London City Airport have also been cancelled over the winter period – around eight per cent of the airline’s flights up to March 2023.

BA said those affected by the cancellations would be contacted and offered an alternative flight or a refund.

But a spokesperson warned: “While the vast majority of our customers will travel as planned, we will need to make some further cancellations.”

In July, Heathrow imposed a passenger cap until September 11, meaning airlines had to cancel flights and limit seats on some journeys.

On August 15, this was extended until October 29.

BA flight capacity has been reduced overall by around 13 per cent between May and October this year.

Other airlines are also expected to make cancellations over the next two months.

Almost 30 easyJet flights from Gatwick were dropped this morning amid staff sickness among traffic control workers.

And American Airlines, Delta, Lufthansa and Wizz Air have also made significant changes to their routes and schedules due to staff shortages, strike action, demand and “economic pressures”.