Ryanair threatens to leave Belgian airports

Last week, Ryanair’s Belgium-based pilots threatened another strike together with their French colleagues on 23-24 July, but it seems unlikely that it can be averted: the Irish airline even threatens to leave the Belgian airports completely.

In a letter to Belgium-based pilots disclosed by Belgian newspaper Le Soir, Ryanair management reacted to the strike threat: “If your only tactic is to deny you ever signed an agreement, to refuse to negotiate, and to keep calling out strikes – trying to undermine a negotiated 2020 agreement – ??then there is no hope of a deal. Ultimately you will have to explain to the pilots why they have to waste money on strikes, and why the company has left the Belgian airports.”

Ryanair says that it has an agreement with 80 percent of its pilots in Europe, and the Belgian pilots are less lenient. “And that while the company intended to show its goodwill by investigating the possibility of adaptation to the cost of living, legally required in Belgium. Eighty percent of the pilots in our network are now under new long-term agreements. You indicate that you will never sign a similar agreement in Belgium. If that’s your point of view, so be it. But then you will be on strike for a very long time, harming business and undermining investment in Belgium – which accounts for three percent of our activities.”

The distance, therefore, remains long between the company and the unions. The chance that the strike, planned for July 23 and 24, can still be averted, seems small.

Source: Le Soir, Sudpresse