RYANAIR has said that it will cut its Dublin-based fleet for the winter season.
The Irish airline announced this morning that it has approved a plan to cut its Dublin-based fleet from 30 to 24 aircraft for the winter season.
In light of the approval, Ryanair has issued letters of 90 days protective notice to over 100 pilots and over 200 cabin crew employees, explaining to them that their services may not be required from October 28th onwards.
It says these reductions have been driven by the “rapid growth of Ryanair’s Polish charter airline…allied to a down turn in forward bookings and airfares in Ireland partly as a result of recent rolling strikes by Irish pilots.
“The strikes have had a negative effect on (close-in) high fare bookings and forward air fares as consumer confidence in the reliability of our Irish flight schedules has been disturbed.”
Ryanair's Chief Operating Officer Peter Bellew says: "We regret these base aircraft reductions at Dublin for winter 2018, but the board has decided to allocate more aircraft to those markets where we are enjoying strong growth (such as Poland), and this will result in some aircraft reductions and job cuts in country markets where business has weakened, or forward bookings are being damaged by rolling strikes by Irish pilots."
The carrier also said that Polish airline, Ryanair Sun, will now offer over 10 aircraft to Polish tour operators, and will be offering transfers to Poland to staff made redundant at the Dublin base.
