Union will meet with Ryanair management on Tuesday evening
Ryanair pilots have suspended a strike on Wednesday, pending the outcome of a meeting with the airline’s management on Tuesday, according to the union Impact.
117 Dublin-based pilots were to stop work for one day severely affecting Ryanair’s ability to run their service.
Impact claim that the dispute is over winning representation for their pilots. Ryanair does not recognise trade unions.
The union and management will meet on Tuesday evening, but Impact say they are available to meet sooner.
In a statement, the union said: “Impact has suspended a planned one day strike of Ryanair pilots next Wednesday after company management agreed to recognise the union as the representative of Irish-based pilots.
“The union has agreed to meet management on Tuesday evening, but says it is available to meet sooner.
“The union asked management to release its Ryanair pilot representatives to prepare for and attend the meeting.
“The union acknowledged the principled determination of Ryanair pilots, which it said had made this breakthrough possible, and said it looked forward to establishing a positive relationship with Ryanair company management.
Impact added that it hoped the suspension of industrial action would remove any uncertainty for passengers intending to travel on Wednesday and said the union would make no further comment until after the meeting on Tuesday.
Ryanair have said that they will recognise unions for the first time in their history in response to the dispute. The move comes after staff in Germany, Portugal, Britain and Italy voted to withdraw their labour.
The firm’s chief operations officer, Peter Bellew, said: “Let’s keep talking. Get people home quietly for Christmas. Union meetings planned next week and January.”
Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s Chief Executive Officer, has never spoken to unions in the airline’s history. In October, following the scheduling crisis that saw 50 flights a day cancelled, he offered pilots better pay and conditions.
