No-frills airline Ryanair has pledged that cabin crew walkouts in Spain will not cause disruption for passengers. The first in a five-month campaign of weekly walkouts have started but bosses state they will have no impact on travellers.
The strikes over pay and conditions involve members of the SITCPLA and USO unions and will take place every Monday to Thursday until early January. The airline operates flights to and from Alicante, Barcelona, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, Madrid, Ibiza, Murcia, Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Lanzarote.
Ryanair claimed just “a handful” of its Spanish cabin crew are members of the unions involved and said the walkouts will cause “zero disruption” in August and September. The majority of Ryanair’s Spanish cabin crew are represented by the CCOO union, which has already agreed a deal with the airline.
A spokesperson for the carrier said: “A tiny number of Ryanair flights in Spain were cancelled or delayed in July, but this was mostly due to air traffic control strikes and flight delays. Ryanair expects that these latest threatened strikes will have zero impact on our Spanish flights or schedules in August or September.”
Unions are demanding recognition, the restoration of pre-pandemic wage levels, an agreement on annual leave, and “immediate reinstatement” of 11 workers sacked following the strikes in June and July. They also want the suspension of disciplinary proceedings against another 100 workers involved in previous stoppages.
Ryanair has already reached agreement until 2027 with Spanish and French pilots over post-pandemic pay and conditions. Darrell Hughes, Ryanair people director, said: “We welcome these long-term agreements which run until 2027 and will deliver numerous improvements for our Pilots based in Spain and France.
"While the recovery from the impact of the pandemic is still ongoing and our industry faces significant challenges, this long-term agreement delivers stability, accelerated pay restoration, future pay increases and other benefit improvements for pilots. We have now successfully re-negotiated accelerated pay restoration and improved long-term agreements with over 85 per cent of our pilots.”
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