Ryanair avoids further disruption as Irish pilots suspend planned strike action

A Ryanair plane landing at Rome's Ciampino airport
Ryanair will hold talks with pilots union IALPA, on December 19 after its members suspended planned strike action

Pilots at Ryanair’s Dublin base who had planned to strike this week have suspended the action after the airline’s surprise move to agree to recognise unions.

The Irish Air Line Pilots Association (IALPA) said it would be meeting the carrier on December 19 but would be available sooner for talks if necessary.

The strike would have seen Ryanair’s directly-employed Dublin-based pilots stop work on December 20 as part of their fight for better bargaining power with their employer. These pilots make up about 28pc of its Dublin-based pilot contingent, with the remainder being employed through third party agencies.

But now IALPA has said it will not strike just days before Christmas, a crucial time for airlines, when demand spikes as droves of people look to fly home for the festive period.

The move is in response to Ryanair’s decision last week to agree to recognise unions in spite of boss Michael O’Leary once saying he would only recognise such bodies when “hell freezes over”.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary
Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary had previously pledged to only recognise unions when "hell freezes over"

Such an overture from the low-cost airline was highly unexpected and knocked its shares on the day of the announcement as investors began to try and work out whether Ryanair’s cost advantage over rivals could be partially eroded.

The move comes at an interesting time, just two weeks after the company’s new chief operating officer Peter Bellew rejoined the company. Mr Bellew was a stalwart of Ryanair, working with the carrier from 2006 to 2015, at which point he left to join Malaysia Airlines.

The decision avoids yet more disruption at the airline after a tumultuous year which led to it cancelling thousands of flights this winter on the back of a pilot rostering error.

The Impact union, which represents IALPA, acknowledged the “principled determination of Ryanair pilots”, whom it said had made the breakthrough possible and said that it “looked forward to establishing a positive relationship with Ryanair company management”.

A key sticking point in the talks could be that Ryanair has agreed to recognise unions “as long as they establish committees of Ryanair pilots to deal with Ryanair issues”. The airline has contended that the IALPA union is predominantly made up of Aer Lingus pilots and that its threat of action was more to do with pilots of that carrier trying to achieve union recognition.

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