Ryanair Belgium cabin crew vow to create ‘travel chaos’ with September strike
Belgium cabin crew members at Ryanair have vowed to create "travel chaos" when they strike later this month.
Belgium union CNE said it would strike on 28 September amid an ongoing dispute over pay and working conditions, causing "travel chaos".
Strikes have cast a cloud over Ryanair's summer, with the airline struggling to contain a number of strikes by pilots and cabin crew across Europe.
Unions are striking over a range of issues including conditions, base transfers and annual leave. Workers outside of Ireland are pushing to secure employment on local contracts rather than ones based in Ireland where they have to pay higher rates of income tax.
Other European unions, including in Italy and Spain, are due to announce today whether they will also strike in late September.
The airline hit back at what it called "false claims" by the union, saying it had managed to get around strikes. It said over the summer only five days of strike action were launched by less than 25 per cent of its Irish pilots and that a strike by German pilots yesterday, which forced the cancellation of 150 flights, resulted in the airline operating 250 out of 400 flights.
Ryanair’s chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said: “Repeated false claims made by these unions about “travel chaos” have proven to be unfounded. While we regret the limited strike actions that have taken place this summer, in all cases we have judiciously pre-cancelled a small number of our 2,500 daily flights in order to minimise customer disruption and inconvenience.
"If there is a further unsuccessful cabin crew strike on the 28th Sept next then, as we demonstrated in Germany yesterday, Ryanair will pre-advise customers of a small number of flight cancellations, and the overwhelming majority of Ryanair’s flights and services that day will operate as normal, and we will carry the overwhelming majority of the 400,000 passengers who will be scheduled to fly with us that day.”
At a press conference yesterday Ryanair's chief executive Michael O'Leary defended the airline's strike record, saying it was the price to pay to keep fares low for passengers.
"We are not Easyjet and will not roll over every time we are threatened with a strike," he said. "We do not want strikes but we will put up with them if it means defending our cost base."
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