The news that Ryanair would be cancelling more than 2,000 flights raised eyebrows across the industry – and the City, with the airline’s share price dropping by around 3.5% in the aftermath.

In the context of the 2,500 daily flights which Ryanair operates, the carrier was quick to highlight that the 2,024 flights affected represent just 2% of its overall operations. But this will be of little comfort to the 400,000 passengers now facing the hassle of organising refunds or alternative flights – and in some cases compensation claims.

And it’s not just customers that are impacted. As TTG reports this week, agents who dynamically packaged the affected flights may be left footing the bill for the accommodation that their clients are now not able to use. The puzzling issue is how the carrier could have allowed such a ludicrous situation to happen. “This is a mess of our own making”, admitted O’Leary.

Let’s see what kind of job he makes of fixing this mess and responding to those affected – including the agents now going the extra mile to help their clients.

Excellence rewarded

Those going the extra mile were also highlighted at this year’s TTG Travel Awards on Monday, as the industry came together to celebrate the winning agents and suppliers. We would have presented a trophy to each of our finalists if we could, but after thousands of travel agent ratings and hours of consideration by our panel of judges, there could only be 31 winners.

Congratulations to Celebrity Cruises, which won an unprecedented four trophies. But who were our other winners? See the full list here.