RYANAIR pilots are to hold two further one-day strikes later this month after talks failed to find a breakthrough.
A strike by pilots from the Irish Airline Pilots Association (IALPA), a branch of Fórsa trade union, went ahead on Thursday despite last-minute talks with the airline.
It resulted in Ryanair cancelling 30 of its 290 Irish flights today, with high-frequency routes between Ireland and Britain axed to minimise the impact on families holidaying in mainland Europe.
Despite finding ‘common ground’ in Wednesday’s talks with the airline, Fórsa has now announced details of further strike action.
'Common ground'
“The Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (IALPA) branch of Fórsa today (Thursday) gave notice that it intends to stage two further one-day pilot strikes in Ryanair commencing at 1am on Friday, July 20, and at 1am on Tuesday, July 24,” said a Fórsa.
“The union and management found some common ground in talks yesterday (Wednesday) on the proposal that a joint working group could help the parties agree on a fair and transparent method to govern base transfer arrangements and related matters, but failed to reach agreement on the terms of reference for such a group.
“On a number of occasions in recent months, there have been suggestions that third-party facilitation could assist in reaching consensus on issues of disagreement.
“It is, therefore, regrettable that Ryanair management has so far rejected the suggestion of third party assistance.”
'Achieved nothing'
In a statement, Ryanair said today's strike had ‘achieved nothing’ as all customers on the 30 affected flights had switched flights or accepted refunds.
It added that the 262 unaffected Irish flights experienced no disruption.
“Given that today’s strike by 25 per cent of out Irish pilots has achieved nothing, we hope they will now accept our offer to set up a working group to discuss, explain and resolve their issues," said the airline.
“This would have happened sooner if Fórsa had taken up any of the 21 invitations to meet us before yesterday.”
Pilots from the IALPA are striking in a dispute over what it claimed was management’s approach to transferring pilots between its European and African bases.
