There was little sign last night of a softening of Ryanair management's position as it issued a stern rebuke to a cohort of its Dublin-based pilots who are scheduled to strike next week and accused Aer Lingus pilots of interfering in its internal affairs.
A 24-hour stoppage is due to go ahead next Thursday, and unless an agreement can be reached in the days ahead the travel plans of thousands of passengers will be thrown into disarray.
In a strongly-worded statement issued on Friday afternoon, Ryanair said the work stoppage called by the Irish Airline Pilots Association (Ialpa) and the broader Fórsa union has no mandate, and it called on them to call off the "unnecessary" strike.
It repeated its request for the union to meet with management on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of next week at Ryanair’s offices to discuss the issues of seniority and base transfers which, it said had “already been addressed” with a written proposal sent by Ryanair to Fórsa.
Even the meeting place has proved to be a sticking point, with Iapla seeking for the meeting to take place in a neutral venue. Fórsa has said the airline’s refusal to agree to this is “yet another example of a Ryanair view which is it’s either our way or no way”. Ryanair said holding the meeting at a neutral venue would create a “media circus”.
Quorum
In its statement Ryanair also pointed out that the strike had the support of “just 94 of Ryanair’s 350 Irish pilots “ which, it said, was “a quorum of just 27 per cent and significantly less than one third of Ryanair’s Irish pilots”.
The airline claimed some Aer Lingus pilots had been in contact with the Dublin Airport Authority on June 25th, more than 10 days before the completion of the ballot, alerting it to the possibility of "a series of one and two-day stoppages in July and August" at Ryanair
It is latest statement it demanded to know why “Aer Lingus pilots are organising a strike to disrupt thousands of Ryanair customers even before a ballot of 27 per cent of Ryanair is pilots has been completed”.
Fórsa has maintained that despite the fact that less than a third of Ryanair’s Dublin-based pilots have actually voted in favour of the strike it has a mandate because it was only in a position to ballot pilots directly employed by the airline and not contract employees
