It’s not over yet.
Dublin-based pilots at Ryanair have announced a fifth strike date.
Staff are set to engage in industrial action for 24 hours from 1am on Friday 10 August. Ryanair pilots in Sweden and Belgium have also announced that intend to strike that day.
“For over a month, the union has said that industrial action is likely to continue until there is substantial movement on the pilots’ reasonable demands for an agreement on a fair and transparent approach to base transfers and related matters,” pilots’ union Fórsa said in a statement released on Thursday afternoon.
“In the 19 days since the first one-day strike took place, company management has agreed to just two hours of talks, despite Fórsa’s repeated assurance that it is available for discussions at any time. The union has today told Ryanair that it remains available for talks.
“The airline’s escalation of the dispute last Wednesday (25 July) – when it threatened to sack 100 pilots and 200 cabin crew, or transfer them to Poland – led to a predictable hardening of resolve among its staff.”
As well as this, Ryanair also recently confirmed that 100 pilots will take industrial action this Friday 3 August.
A Ryanair spokesperson confirmed to JOE that 20 (7%) of scheduled flights in total have been cancelled, affecting 3,500 passengers.
The airline called on Fórsa to meet in a bid to halt strike action on Tuesday 7 August at Dublin Airport’s Terminal 1.
Ryanair expect to meet FORSA next Tuesday (7 Aug) at 11:00 to advance negotiations on union recognition: pic.twitter.com/SgU1ZMWOg3
— Ryanair (@Ryanair) August 1, 2018
In a letter to the union, Ryanair asked Fórsa to confirm what day and time it wishes to meet and that it suggests Tuesday “as long as no further strike is called prior to meeting (to allow this meeting to occur)”.
In the letter, Ryanair said that it is “irresponsible” of Fórsa to call a fourth day of strike action by 25% of the airline’s Irish pilots because they are “not happy with the wording of Ryanair’s agreement to set up an appeal system”.
The airline has previously said that all 3,500 customers affected by Friday’s cancellations were notified last week by either email or text message.
Meanwhile, this doesn’t seem to be the end of strike action for now. Thursday saw Ryanair inform customers of the likelihood of even more strikes by staff this month.
Pilots at the airline based in Belgium and Sweden have announced that they will strike on Friday week, 10 August, as the industrial dispute at Europe’s largest airline escalates.
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