Ryanair loses bid to have pilots' claims struck out

Ryanair has lost its High Court bid to have claims brought against it by Impact and more than 60 of its pilots struck out. The union and pilots allege the airline is seeking to restrict their right to have a trade union represent them.

Ms Justice Mary Laffoy yesterday rejected Ryanair's claim that the action brought by Impact and the pilots betrayed no reasonable cause of action. She said the case raised "fundamental issues" against a background of a significant change in the law since the coming into operation of the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003.

The proceedings could not be characterised as either frivolous, vexatious or an abuse of the court's process, the judge said.

The judge also rejected Ryanair's claim that Impact did not have the required legal standing to bring the action. It was "certainly arguable" that the union had standing to enforce certain protections for employee rights according to a 2002 decision of the European Court of Human Rights which was being relied on in the proceedings, she said.

She also held that the plaintiffs could make a case alleging a conspiracy between Ryanair and its executives and could seek damages for alleged inducement of breach of contract.

She further disagreed with Ryanair's claim that Impact and the pilots were abusing the court process in bringing the High Court action as well as pursuing claims against Ryanair before the Labour Court and the Labour Relations Commission.

The High Court proceedings were initiated after the pilots sought to have Impact represent them in relation to Ryanair's decision in 2004 to have the pilots move from Boeing 737-200 to Boeing 737-800 aircraft and to engage in the appropriate training for such movement.

In early November 2004, Ryanair refused an invitation from Impact to enter into collective bargaining over the movement of pilots from one aircraft to the other and the training required to carry it out successfully.

Impact then referred the matter, as well as victimisation claims on behalf of the pilots, to the Labour Court.

The pilots claim Ryanair wrote to them offering conversion training at a cost of €15,000 to Ryanair. Each of the letters, they claim, threatened the individual pilot with dismissal on the grounds of redundancy if they failed to accept the offer within a given period.

The letters also included a condition stating that, if Ryanair was compelled to engage in collective bargaining with any pilot association or trade union within five years of commencement of the conversion training, then the pilots would be liable to repay the training costs to Ryanair.