Ryanair Pilots – Give us secure employment practices

For more than two months’ the pilots of Ryanair have clearly stated the desire to enter into meaningful collective negotiations with the airline. So far, Ryanair have refused to respond to the requests of a great majority of its pilots.

- It is obvious that Ryanair must negotiate national collective agreements with its pilots to ensure that both national and European law is complied with, says Martin Lindgren, president of Svensk Pilotförening (SPF) (Swedish Air Line Pilots’ Association).

What started with a number of flight cancellations from different airports in Europe in September soon developed into a media crisis for Ryanair when thousands of flights were cancelled and hundreds of thousand passengers affected. The official reason for the cancellations later was given as leave allocation for its pilots however information from inside the company indicates pilots are resigning from the airline in droves leaving it understaffed.

Over the past two months’ the Pilots of Ryanair have unified under the imposed structure of Employee Representative Committees. A large majority of the nearly 90 pilot bases across Europe have informed the company that further negotiations on their behalf should be conducted through the EERC, European Employee Representative Committee, a body formed by and run by Ryanair Pilots.

The pilots are asking for basic rights:

Give us the right to organise and bargain collectively.
Give us the right to a secure employment model.
Give us the right to choose our own representatives.

A majority of the Ryanair Pilots in Sweden have now elected a Company Council in Svensk Pilotförening. Today, SPF informed Ryanair of this development and urges the company to immediately enter into negotiations with its Pilots through the EERC. Seven Pilots from the Company Council have stepped forward and revealed their names to Ryanair as the newly elected representatives of the Pilots in Sweden.

Publicerad 2017-12-12 av SPF