'It's an absolutely toxic atmosphere with management': Ryanair captains take a stand

BUDGET AIRLINE RYANAIR has come under increasing pressure in recent months over widespread flight cancellations, rostering issues and unrest among its staff.

The company announced earlier this week it was cancelling a further 18,000 flights, which will affect 400,000 customers.

The news came after the airline earlier revealed that up to 50 flights a day would be cancelled throughout the month of October.

Following on from the widespread cancellations, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said that it was taking enforcement action against the airline for “persistently misleading passengers”.

Compounding the airline’s problems is a growing discontent among the company’s pilots, who have been agitating publicly for improved employment terms.

Ryanair has repeatedly insisted that the flight cancellations are down to a rostering issue, with the company having to account for a large number of holidays for pilots before the year’s end.

However, there have been numerous reports of the airline dealing with large numbers of pilots leaving – not least to rival budget carrier Norwegian Air - and being unable to recruit new ones.

Last week, the Irish Times reported claims from the Irish Air Line Pilots’ Association that 700 pilots had left the airline over the last financial year.

Pilots at Ryanair bases across Europe wrote to management earlier this week rejecting a proposed €12,000 bonus for them to forego their annual leave and calling for better work conditions. The pilots said that the terms around the bonus were too restrictive.

Following on from this, pilots from 60 Ryanair bases signed a letter sent to management on Wednesday.

“We were disappointed to hear the CEO at press conferences before the weekend speak in a negative and disparaging way about pilots,” pilots wrote.

“Respect for our passengers, and now respect for pilots, is at the heart of our present difficulties.

“The disrespect shown to both passengers and pilots by company management has not and will not help to solve our shared problems at the moment.”

Issues 

One Ryanair captain, speaking on condition of anonymity, detailed some of the issues he had experienced with the airline. The captain described a culture of hostility between staff and management at the company.

A large number of pilots are contractors of the company and not official employees. As well as rostering issues and rows regarding overtime, the captain said that were more basic issues around the terms and conditions of employees that concerned them.

“Pilots don’t get pens for example or clipboards to go to do their job,” he said.

“I know it’s a minor thing, but it’s typical of the company so we’ve to go into work, we have no pens. You have to have your own pen to go into work to do your work.”

The pilot said there were also issues around food and water during long flights.

“There’s water provided in the crew rooms before you go. But you might have a long, 12-hour day with diversions where you run out of water and you have nothing,” he said.

“You have nowhere to get water so you have to buy it off the cabin crew. Or any food you have to buy.”

There are also issues when being called off standby.

“Sometimes if you’re called off of standby and you have to be in the airport in an hour, you may not have food ready,” he said.

“So you might have had no money on you or lost your card and you’re screwed. There’s no way of getting food provided for you even though you might have a long day.”

Pilots

As issues at the airline have mounted and staff at bases across Europe have spoken out, questions have been raised about employee terms and conditions with the airline.

However, Ryanair has repeatedly insisted that the cancellations are due to a rostering issue around holidays and nothing else.

“We originally believed we could address this issue by incentivising pilots to work multiple days off, or work one or more week of your allocated annual leave,” chief operations officer Michael Hickey said in a letter to staff on Wednesday.

Hickey said that the issue was being “exploited by competitor pilots” to claim that Ryanair was short on pilots.

“None of these claims are true, but we recognise that working days off is unsustainable over the medium- to long-term,” he said.

However the captain said that pilots were leaving as there were better terms and conditions at other airlines and increased opportunities.

“Leaving is something I would consider,” the captain said.

“There are a lot more opportunities now than before.”

He added the problems for the airline could increase as “hundreds” of Ryanair pilots would potentially already be in holding pools for other airlines, waiting for a start date.

“So the company wouldn’t know that these pilots are in holding pools for other airlines and as soon as the other airline tells that pilot they have a start date then that pilot would hand in their notice to Ryanair.”

Demands

The pilots – represented at each of Ryanair’s bases by groups called ERCs – have set out a list of common demands from the company in exchange for their full support in tackling work issues.

The cancellation issue comes on the back of a recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling which determined that the airline’s crew members can bring industrial relations proceedings before the courts in the countries in which they are based.

Before now, Ryanair could automatically refer disputes for staff based overseas but who were on Irish contracts to the Irish courts.

At the time of the ruling earlier this month, unions welcomed the fact that Ryanair could be stopped from skirting local labour laws in other European countries.

This ruling is reflected in the letter from pilots to management on Wednesday. In the letter, the ERCs of 60 Ryanair bases across Europe laid out a list of issues for the company to address.

The requests were as follows:

1. Permanent local contracts – following national laws and rights;
2. Co-ordination between regional pilot teams – recognised as negotiating partners;
3. Benchmarking of conditions with regional competitor airlines to stem the exit of pilots;
4. New contracts, properly negotiated, by 1 Jan 2018 – with agreed interim arrangements if negotiations are delayed;
5. Pilots are pilots – they will therefore have their own professional assistance for any negotiations;
6. Pilots want Ryanair to succeed and thrive. They want to minimise cancellations and will support as much as possible every effort to achieve this stability;
7. Pilots will surrender some of their leave to help resolve the current problems, but only in the context of the changes outlined above.

The captain said that there was sizeable bad sentiment among staff and that issues at the airline had been going on “for years”.

He added that he had no sense of loyalty to the company, despite having worked there for a number of years.

“Why would you when you’re treated badly? It’s an absolute toxic atmosphere between management and crew.”

In a statement to TheJournal.ie, a Ryanair spokesman said: “We don’t comment on rumour or speculation.”

Earlier in the week, the airline said it would “not respond or accede to anonymous demands made via unsigned emails for group or regional meetings”.

Written by Cormac Fitzgerald and posted on TheJournal.ie