Ryanair pilots strike over pay and conditions as 396 flights cancelled

Hundreds of Ryanair flights did not take off as planned yesterday due to a series of pilot strikes in five countries.

Ryanair pilots dress accordingly as they take part in a meeting during a strike for higher wages in Frankfurt. Picture: AP

Staff in Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands staged a 24-hour walkout over pay and conditions.

The airline said 396 flights have been cancelled as a result, forcing passengers who planned to travel yesterday to rebook or take different routes.

Ryanair planes have a capacity of 189, meaning more than 74,000 passengers could be affected.

The Irish budget airline said that the strikes were “regrettable and unjustified” and called for unions to come back to the negotiating table.

Forsa, which has been representing the Irish pilots, issued a statement yesterday morning saying that Ryanair’s delay in agreeing to a third-party mediator had meant the strike went ahead.

Despite the walkouts, 85 per cent of its scheduled flights, more than 2,000, were set to operate as normal, Ryanair said.

“Ryanair took every step to minimise the disruption and we notified our customers as early as possible advising them of their free move, refund or reroute options,” the carrier said.

“The majority of customers have already been accommodated on another Ryanair flight.

“We want to again apologise to customers affected by this unnecessary disruption and we ask the striking unions to continue negotiations instead of calling any more unjustified strikes.”

One customer described the airline as a “headache”, complaining they had had difficulty getting a quick response after contacting the firm on their live chat feed.

They tweeted: “#ryanair cancelled my flight in the last minute because of pilots strike.

“They offer me to change my tickets online which it’s not possible because of their system crash.

“No-one is on the phone and livechat. They even don’t do a refund.

“Ryanair is an headache.”

Another customer said that she would miss work meetings and a doctor’s appointment due to a cancelled flight.

She wrote: “Many thanks to @Ryanair for cancelling my flight home + ensuring all of the de-stressing I have done on this trip is cancelled out in an instant.” In June Ryanair signed an agreement with the Unite union, giving hundreds of cabin crew employees full consultation rights and collective bargaining.

The airline said at the time that it was “a further sign of the progress Ryanair is making with trade unions since our December 2017 decision to recognise them”.

The Unite agreement came six months after the airline signed what was described as an “historic” recognition deal with the trade union representing pilots.

Under the agreement, the British Airline Pilots’ Association (Balpa) was recognised as the sole trade union representing all of Ryanair’s 600 employed pilots based in the UK.

Meanwhile in Ireland Forsa said its focus will now shift to the negotiations that are due to get under way on Monday.