Ryanair pilots to consider serving notice of further strikes

Pilots will consider serving notice of further strikes on Ryanair at a meeting today.

Directly-employed members of the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa) – part of trade union Fórsa – staged their third one-day stoppage at Ryanair on Tuesday in a dispute over base transfers, promotions, leave and other issues.

The disputes committee of Fórsa’s services and enterprise division will meet Wednesday to consider further industrial action at the airline.

It is understood that members could decide to hold further strikes at Ryanair. Any action can only take place next week at the earliest as the law obliges the union to give the company a minimum of seven days’ notice.

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Ryanair confirmed that it re-accommodated or refunded 2,500 passengers affected by the 16 flights – from a total of 290 – that the airline cancelled as a result of Tuesday’s strike.

The airline apologised to customers, and pointed out that it operated more than 2,400 flights on Tuesday, carrying 450,000 passengers.

The company once again called on Irish pilots to resolve their dispute through a working group that both sides have agreed to establish

Ryanair will cancel four Irish flights in total between Wednesday and Thursday as a result of cabin crew strikes in Belgium, Spain and Portugal. The airline is cancelling 300 flights on each day in Europe as a result of the stoppage.

Working group

The company once again called on Irish pilots to resolve their dispute through a working group that both sides have agreed to establish to tackle the issues raised by Ialpa.

Fórsa-Ialpa has said that it will suspend strikes on the basis of 11 conditions already set out to the company. Ryanair maintains that these terms are not suitable for an airline of its scale with 87 bases in 37 countries.

The carrier says that only 25 per cent of its Irish pilots are involved in the dispute, and maintains that they are paid €150,000 to €200,00 a year. However, Ialpa’s position is that most are paid a basic of €80,000 a year, with the scope to earn a further €50,000.