Ryanair pay talks with Irish pilots continuing

Ryanair met Irish Airline Pilots’ Association/Fórsa officials on Thursday to continue pay talks.

The sides have been in talks since April, when the airline first offered to restore half the pilots’ Covid-19 20 per cent pay cut this year, followed by the remaining 10 per cent next year, if profits reach pre-pandemic levels.

Neither side commented following Thursday’s meeting, beyond saying that the process was ongoing. It is understood they are due to meet again shortly.

The union had sought to refer the issue to the Workplace Relations Commission, but the company argued that the sides had yet to exhaust local bargaining, so it was too soon to bring in a third party.

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Ryanair has struck pay deals with around 85 per cent of its pilots around Europe.

Meanwhile, the airline group’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, signalled that the era of rockbottom flight tickets was over.

Surging fuel costs mean that fliers are unlikely to see Ryanair offering €9.99 flights for the next number of years, he told BBC 4 radio’s Today programme.

Ryanair’s average fare is likely to rise to €50 over the next five years from around €40 now, Mr O’Leary predicted.

However, he said that people would continue to fly frequently. “But I think people are going to become much more price sensitive and therefore my view of life is that people will trade down in their many millions,” he said.

Last month Mr O’Leary suggested that high fuel bills and capacity cuts by European airlines would begin pushing up air fares.