Airlines German pilot union called for Ryanair strike

After this weeks´ negotiations ended without any results for the pilots, Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) has called out industrial action at Ryanair on Friday. Between 5:01 am to 8:59 am local time, directly employed Germany Ryanair pilots went on strike. Only around 20 flights were affected and cancelled or delayed.

Ingolf Schumacher, head of Industrial Department at VC said: "Ryanair's public offer to conduct negotiations with VC can only be classified as a further publicity stunt" "In the history of the VC, there has never been a case in which the collective bargaining autonomy has been trampled on by an employer as it is now the case with Ryanair. This makes it clear to VC that the company is not interested in a mutually constructive cooperation, based on trust and equality. Rather, Ryanair is trying to win time and attempting to delay the beginning of collective bargaining"

The first negotiation talks between VC and Ryanair were planned on Wednesday, but were cancelled shortly. Ryanair rejected two of the five VC council members at the table. Vereinigung Cockpit said, this would show, that the employer would not truly desire to enter constructive negotiations.

One week ago, Ryanair invited pilot unions from Ireland, the UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany to talks to prevent chaos over Christmas. This Tuesday, the airline also said it will recognise cabin crew unions.

On 21 December, the Irish union Impact had announced, that Ryanair´s management had confirmed the recognition of Impact as representative of the airline´s pilots.

Ryanair is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and operates as low-cost carrier. Its fleet consists of 400 Boeing 737 aircraft, which performs over 2,000 daily flights in Europe