Ryanair pays its male staff in the UK more than three times as much as their female colleagues, the no-frills airline has revealed.
Women’s hourly pay at Ryanair is on average 67% lower than men’s. Only 3% of staff in its highest-earning quartile are women.
“Like all airlines, our gender pay in the UK is materially affected by the relatively low numbers of female pilots in the aviation industry,” the airline told The Sunday Times.
“In recent years, the number of female pilots applying to Ryanair has increased and we are committed to developing this welcome trend.”
Only eight – or 1.4% – of the budget airline’s 554 pilots in the UK are women, compared with 5.7% at rival easyJet.
However, 405 of the Irish airline’s 586 UK-based cabin crew are female.
“Because the majority of our UK pilots are male, on average, bonus payments to male employees are 20.6% higher than those paid to female employees – mostly cabin crew,” according to Ryanair’s gender pay report. “The median bonus paid to male employees is 3.4% higher than the median bonus paid to female employees.”
The airline said: “In Ryanair’s case, our management and administration are based largely in Ireland, so the vast majority of our UK-based colleagues are pilots or cabin crew.
“It is a feature of the aviation industry that more males than females choose to enter the pilot profession.”
UK companies, charities and some public sector organisations employing 250 or more staff must publish their gender pay gap data by tomorrow (Wednesday) under new legislation.