Ryanair automates customer service and hires more than planned
A bot is taking over most simple passenger cases. People at the carrier’s Warsaw center handle escalations and crisis situations, and the team is still growing.
Ryanair’s Warsaw customer service center (Customer Service Escalation Centre) employs around 250 people. That is 50 more than the original plan assumed. The company is still recruiting for several dozen vacancies, mainly for customer contact and administration. This was reported by Izabella Lenkiewicz, head of the center’s operations, in an interview for pulsHR.pl (opens in a new tab) published on Thursday, October 1.
Every contact starts with a bot. According to the company, it resolves around 70 percent of inquiries. Agents receive the cases the bot cannot handle: complex bookings, cancellations, and flight delays. A separate team trains the bot by analyzing real customer questions and updating the knowledge base. Artificial intelligence (AI) also helps agents find information faster. “Despite the development of AI, we are constantly growing and hiring,” says Lenkiewicz.
The center launched in 2025. In an announcement on May 28, 2025, Ryanair and its subsidiary Buzz said they would invest PLN 45 million and create 200 jobs. Employee turnover is 3-4 percent according to the company, and around 70 percent of team leaders were promoted from agents. Work is done on-site because agents use sensitive customer data. At the opening, CCNEWS.pl described the investment as “more of an image-building move than a systemic solution” given the carrier’s scale. The data on the bot’s effectiveness comes from the company itself.
Ryanair’s example fits the findings of a 2026 report by EY-Parthenon and the Polish Direct Marketing Association, described by CRN.pl. Cost reductions thanks to bots are declared by 83 percent of Polish customer contact centers (contact centers), while only 23 percent report improved customer satisfaction. Contact with a bot is rated positively by 60 percent of customers, compared with 88 percent for a consultant. Sweden’s Klarna, which in 2024 replaced 700 consultants with artificial intelligence, began hiring people again in early 2026.
For teams planning to implement bots, Ryanair’s example shows that automation can change the scope of consultants’ work, shifting them toward complex cases and escalations instead of eliminating their positions.