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Ryanair U-turn on recognition of pilot unions

Ryanair U-turn on recognition of pilot unions

Ryanair has agreed to recognise pilot unions to avoid widespread customer disruptions over Christmas period.

The airline has called for the planned strike action to halt and it has written to the pilot unions in Ireland, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal to invite them to talks to recognise the unions.

Ryanair said they will recognise them "as long as they establish Committees of Ryanair pilots to deal with Ryanair issues, as Ryanair will not engage with pilots who fly for competitor airlines in Ireland or elsewhere".

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said: "Christmas flights are very important to our customers and we wish to remove any worry or concern that they may be disrupted by pilot industrial action next week.

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"If the best way to achieve this is to talk to our pilots through a recognised union process, then we are prepared to do so, and we have written today to these unions inviting them to talks to recognise them and calling on them to cancel the threatened industrial action planned for Christmas week.

"Recognising unions will be a significant change for Ryanair, but we have delivered radical change before, most recently when we launched Ryanair Labs and our highly successful Always Getting Better customer improvement programme in 2013.

 

"Putting the needs of our customers first, and avoiding disruption to their Christmas flights, is the reason why we will now deal with our pilots through recognised national union structures and we hope and expect that these structures can and will be agreed with our pilots early in the New Year."

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