WEBSITE problems prompted fears that Ryanair flights from Bournemouth had been cancelled for the winter.

Passengers were shocked to see the word CANCELLED written across their bookings when they logged in to check some details or to check in online yesterday morning.

Further investigation revealed it was impossible to book any flights from Bournemouth between November and March, leading many to believe that all the flights had been cancelled.

But it has since been revealed that a website glitch was responsible and that the flights will go ahead as planned.

Jane and Paul Sillence from Bournemouth are due to fly to Malaga on Wednesday and have booked return flights for November 15.

The couple, who are retired, travel regularly from Bournemouth to Spain for several weeks at a time.

Jane told the Daily Echo: “I went on the website to check in for Wednesday’s flight and couldn’t believe it when I saw that our return flight had apparently been cancelled.

“We hadn’t received an email and I still haven’t been told exactly what’s going on by Ryanair.

“We’re just going to go anyway because we’ve got six weeks to sort out how to get home again.”

Another Bournemouth couple, who did not want to be named, said: “We booked last week to go to Tenerife in December and my sister decided she would like to join us.

“I went online to add her to the booking and noticed that our flights had been cancelled. I couldn’t believe that no one had got in touch with us about it. I thought I would have at least received an email.”

The glitch happened on the day Ryanair issued issued a profit warning after suffering the effects of recent crew strikes and rising fuel prices.

The budget airline said full-year profits will be 12 per cent lower than expected, having dropped its guidance to between 1.1 billion euro and 1.2 billion euro (£978 million to £1 billion).

Ryanair said pilot and cabin crew strikes in September had taken their toll on the business, knocking passenger numbers and resulting in high passenger compensation costs.

Last month Ryanair reassured customers in Bournemouth that its flights are safe after unveiling a new base at Exeter Airport.

It already operates flights to Malaga and Malta from Bournemouth and will run the same routes from the new Devon base next summer. A company spokesman said there are enough passengers for both airports.

A spokesman for Ryanair said: “No routes from Bournemouth have been cancelled. Our Bournemouth winter 2018 schedules will operate as planned, but some flights were temporarily unavailable on our website earlier on Monday, due to a server issue, which has since been resolved.”