Irish budget airline Ryanair (FR/RYR) has today confirmed 250 job cuts at its offices in Dublin, Stansted, Madrid and Wroclaw.
The airline says that the cuts are a direct result of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) groundings and have been achieved through a combination of probation/fixed term contract ends, resignations and redundancies.
Ryanair’s offices are due to re-open on the 1st June but the cuts to office staff were required as the airline faced a substantial drop in traffic and revenue during the global crisis.
Currently operating only 1% of its normal schedule, Ryanair hopes to get back to nearer 40% from the 1st July but is due to announce around 3,000 pilots and cabin crew job cuts as the pandemic continues to grip the airline industry.
Ryanair has also not ruled out closing some of its smaller bases, including in the UK.
Ryanair’s People Director Darrell Hughes said: “This is a very painful time for Ryanair, our crews and our people supporting operations from our Dublin, Stansted, Madrid and Wroclaw offices. While we expect to re-open our offices from 1 June next, we will not require the same number of support team members in a year when we will carry less than 100m passengers, against an original budget of 155m.
“Regrettably, we will now have a small number of compulsory redundancies in Dublin, Stansted, Madrid and Wroclaw to right-size our support teams for a year when we will carry less than 100m passengers due to the Covid-19 crisis. These job losses were communicated to individual team members this week, and they will not be returning to work in our Dublin, Stansted, Madrid or Wroclaw offices when they reopen on 1 June next.
“We are continuing to meet our pilot and cabin crew unions across Europe to finalise up to 3,000 job cuts and 20% pay cuts as we return to approx. 40% of our normal flight schedules from July onwards. Ryanair is also facing intense price competition across Europe as we are forced to compete with flag carrier airlines who have received over €30bn in unlawful State Aid subsidies from their Governments, and who will be able to engage in below low cost selling for many years with the benefit of this illegal State Aid.“
Ryanair has submitted a legal case to the European Courts against the Swedish Governments bailout plans for Swedish airlines which it claims is contrary to EU law.
