Ryanair is cancelling 250 flights to and from Germany tomorrow due to a strike by pilots over pay and conditions.
The walkout coincides with a fifth strike by a quarter of the airline’s Irish pilots, disrupting 3,500 passengers. Pilots in Sweden and Belgium also previously voted to stage a 24-hour strike tomorrow.
The low fares carrier condemned the action by the German Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union as “unjustified”.
Passengers of affected flights to and from Germany have been notified and offered refunds or alternative routes.
Normal services are scheduled to resume on Saturday.
Ryanair chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said: “We regret the decision of the VC to go ahead with this unnecessary strike action given that we sent through a revised proposal on a collective labour agreement on August 3.
“We also invited VC to meet us on Tuesday (7 Aug) but they did not respond to this invitation.
“Our pilots in Germany enjoy excellent working conditions. They are paid up to €190,000 p.a. and, as well as additional benefits, they received a 20% pay increase at the start of this year. Ryanair pilots earn at least 30% more than Eurowings and 20% more than Norwegian pilots.
“We again call on the VC to remove the threat of an unjustified and unnecessary strike, to commit to providing reasonable seven days notice of strike action and to accept our invitations to meet for meaningful negotiations for our German pilots and minimise disruption to German customers.
“Ryanair is now forced to cancel 250 of over 2,400 flights scheduled to operate on Friday.
“We apologise to our customers for this unnecessary strike and regrettable disruption.”