Ryanair to keep on UK-based crew in return for pay cuts, say unions

Ryanair has agreed to keep on all UK-based cabin crew in return for pay cuts, according to unions.

The deal would involve crew at the budget airline accepting salary reductions of 5-10% over the next four years or until its business returns to pre-pandemic levels.

Ryanair had announced in May it was planning to cut 3,000 jobs after grounding most of its fleet as the coronavirus pandemic hit.

The deal was accepted in a ballot of Unite members at Ryanair, who voted for lower pay to preserve jobs. It follows a similar deal reached between the UK pilots union, Balpa, and Ryanair, in which pilots agreed to a 20% pay cut, although there could still be some redundancies among pilots.

Unite said the reductions were temporary and tiered to ensure the lowest paid were least affected, adding that “temporary problems require temporary solutions”.

The Unite assistant general secretary, Diana Holland, said: “Unite has been contending with an incredibly difficult set of circumstances in the aviation sector.

“The agreement with Ryanair shows that the company has taken a more constructive and less damaging approach to dealing with the issues than many of its competitor airlines.”

The unusual praise for the Irish airline’s “constructive approach” in contrast to rivals comes after Unite refused to engage in talks with British Airways until it has removed a threat to “fire and rehire” staff on inferior contracts.

BA intends to make up to 12,000 employees redundant, and recently offered crew a maximum 20% cut in basic pay, although many senior staff would also lose allowances that make up a significant part of their pay.

Swingeing job losses are expected across the sector, despite more flights resuming. EasyJet is in consultation over almost 2,000 UK job losses among pilots and crew. While Lufthansa is still negotiating cuts, it said on Tuesday that it believed there were now 22,000 jobs surplus to requirements across its airline group.