Five months of Ryanair strikes have begun and many flights are affected

A fresh wave of Ryanair cabin crew strikes started on Monday (8 August) and they’re scheduled to continue until January 2023.

The airline’s Spanish cabin crew union members are striking for higher pay and better working conditions.

It’s estimated that 24-hour strike action – which runs from Monday to Thursday – may affect up to 1.4 million passengers, or around 130,600 travellers every day.

Strikes are expected to continue until 7 January and airports in Valencia, Girona, Santiago de Compostela, Ibiza, Malaga, Madrid, Barcelona, Palma and Alicante will all be affected. 

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Union groups USO and Sitclpa have backed the strike, with USO leader Lidia Aransanz saying: “As the company has been unable to listen to the workers, we have been forced to call new strike days.”

However, Ryanair has insisted passengers shouldn’t expect many problems, saying in a statement: “Recent strikes by USO/SITCPLA have been poorly supported with minimal effect.”

LADbible has approached Ryanair for further comment. 

The airline’s Spanish cabin crew also went on strike in June and July over work conditions and pay.

Labour organisations including SITCPLA, the Airlines Cabin Crew Independent Union, and USO came together at the time to demand an uplift in pay, claiming staff would have 'no other option' but to walk out if their demands were not met.

A letter from Ryanair director Darrell Hughes seen by Bloomberg News in June revealed Ryanair called off talks in Spain earlier that month after the unions threatened a staff walkout, with talks on a collective agreement making 'almost no progress' due to what the carrier described as the unions’ 'unrealistic demands and refusal to meaningfully engage'.

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In a statement to LADbible, a spokesperson for Ryanair said in June: "Ryanair has negotiated collective agreements covering 90% of our people across Europe. In recent months we have been negotiating improvements to those agreements as we work through the Covid recovery phase.

"Those negotiations are going well and we do not expect widespread disruption this summer. In Spain, we are pleased to have reached a collective agreement with CCOO, Spain’s largest and most representative union, delivering improvements for Spanish-based cabin crew and reinforcing Ryanair’s commitment to the welfare of its cabin crew.

"These announcements by the much smaller USO and SITCPLA unions are a distraction from their own failures to deliver agreements after three years of negotiations and we believe that any strikes they call will not be supported by our Spanish crews.”