Yesterday, Ryanair pre-cancelled 190 (8%) of its 2,400 scheduled flights on Friday September 28 due to a strike by cabin crew in Spain, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Italy and Germany. And today, the airline took the unusual step of publishing its offer to pilots and cabin crew in order to have its say in the burgeoning war of words between the parties as well as promote a speedy conclusion of collective labour agreements (CLA’s).
In a press release, Ryanair bemoans what it describes as “competitor trade union propaganda” and states that it has submitted a competition complaint to the European Commission, calling for an investigation of “anti-competitive behaviour of certain competitor airline crew, unions and lobby groups, who are actively impeding Ryanair’s negotiations with its pilots/cabin crew and who are organising repeated strikes in an effort to damage Ryanair’s business and customer confidence, for the benefit of Ryanair’s competitors”.
Ryanair claims that despite the progress it has made with some unions, it continues to face significant impediments in certain countries where it says “competitor airline pilots and cabin crew are interfering in negotiations, or blocking progress, up to and including organising unnecessary strikes”.
The strikes are hitting Ryanair hard and never one to shy away from confrontations, the airline is hitting back calling for an investigation into what it deems as a “collective campaign” against the company.
Speaking in Brussels today, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said: “We have made real progress with the unions and our people in many EU countries since we agreed to recognise unions in Dec 2017. However, in certain countries, most notably in Portugal, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden similar progress is being impeded by the interference of competitor airline pilots and cabin crew who are conspiring to call repeated and unnecessary strikes, which are disrupting Ryanair’s customers, and damaging our business for the benefit of their legacy airline employers.”
He adds: “We are not aware of any other multi-national company in Europe where its union negotiations are interfered with by competitor employees. Volkswagen’s union negotiations do not take place with Peugeot car workers. Tesco is not required to meet with ASDA employees... This is anti-competitive behaviour which damages consumers.”