Facing the imminent threat of a strike by its pilots, Ryanair has offered for the first time in its 32-year history to recognize the rights of its pilots to unionize. The action is a last ditch effort to avert a planned pilot strike scheduled to take place on December 20. Ryanair had previously refused to recognize unions as part of its ultra low-cost model, which has helped to turn the small Irish regional airline into one of Europe’s largest air carriers. “Recognizing unions will be a significant change for Ryanair, but we have delivered radical change before,” Chief executive Michael O’Leary said in a statement. “We hope and expect that these structures can and will be agreed with by our pilots early in the new year.”
Ryanair pilots in several countries were threatening strike actions in the days leading up to the Christmas Holidays. Strikes had already been scheduled to take place in Ireland, Italy, and Portugal. The Irish based company stated that it had sent a letter to unions in Britain, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain this morning. The letter stated that the airline was ready to hold talks to formally recognize the unions, and asked for confirmation that the planned industrial actions would be canceled. The pilots have been angered by Ryanair following the announcement of 20,000 flight cancellations that began in September, and are expected to extend into March of 2018. The airline blamed the cancellations on a lack of standby pilots due to a rostering error that followed rule changes by Irish regulators. Pilots have stated that Ryanair is facing a major staffing shortage, a claim that management has repeatedly denied.
In other news today, Ryanair has stated that it is looking into buying the assets of insolvent Austrian leisure airline Niki. Niki was formerly part of the now insolvent carrier Air Berlin, which is seeking a new buyer after Lufthansa decided to drop its bid for those assets two days ago. The airline wants to look into the possibility of using Niki’s take-off and landing slots at Berlin’s Tegel Airport to operate a 9 or 10 aircraft base at the airport. “At first look, Niki’s Tegel slot portfolio would be woefully inadequate to support a nine-aircraft base but we will review the utility of Niki’s slots as their availability becomes clearer,” Ryanair said in an email statement. The rest of the Air Berlin assets were divided amongst Lufthansa and European low-cost carrier EasyJet.
