New Year, New Ryanair Strikes

Cabin Crew at Ryanair’s Spanish bases are set to carry out three 24 hour strikes this month over their working conditions and what they say is a failure by the Irish budget airline to comply with local laws.

The two unions representing the cabin crews, USO and Sitcpla, has said they will hold strikes on the 8th, 10th and 13th January 2019.

A statement from the USO Union said that Ryanair “continues to refuse to accept national law with all its consequences” and as a result, the 1,800 members represented in Spain have worse working conditions than their counterparts in other countries.

A spokesperson for the Sitcpla Union said “It is unprecedented that we still have to fight for Ryanair to comply with Spanish laws and because the rules of the game have to be translated into a paper”

Ryanair now has an opportunity to meet with the Unions in order to reach a resolution to avoid the strikes which could affect flights from the UK to Spain, and due to the nature of Ryanair’s network, flights to other areas carried out by Spanish crews.

Ryanair has was besieged by strikes in 2018 and is currently facing legal action by the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) over its refusal to pay compensation to passengers affected last year. The airline’s profits took a significant hit as a result of the industrial action despite traffic on its network growing by 11%.

About Nick Harding 2019 Articles
Nick is the senior reporter and editor at UK Aviation News as well as working freelance elsewhere. He has his finger firmly on the pulse on Aviation, not only in the UK but worldwide. Nick has been asked to speak in a professional capacity on LBC, Heart and other broadcast networks.