A Begian union suggestion that a planned Ryanair cabin crew strike on September 28 will cause travel chaos has been rejected as “false claims” by the airline.
Ryanair was responding to the announcement of a planned walkout by the CNE union, representing what Ryanair described as a “small minority” of cabin crew
The budget carrier pointed to the impact of previous industrial action, including five days of strikes by less than a quarter of its Irish pilots this summer.
Ryanair completed 280 of its 300 flights to and from Ireland on each of those days because more than 75% of its Irish pilots continued to work normally.
Ryanair operated more than 2,200 flights and carried over 380,000 passengers despite a strike by German pilots and cabin crew on Wednesday.
More than 70% of German-based pilots and cabin crew reported for work and Ryanair completed more than 250 of its daily schedule of 400 flights.
The airline cancelled 150 flights in advance with affected passengers being re-accommodated or refunded.
Ryanair said expects the vast majority of its cabin crew across Europe will work as normal even if there is another limited cabin crew strike on September 28.
A “significant majority” of its cabin crew in Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal are also projected to work normally, as they have during previous strikes, the airline said.
Chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said: “Repeated false claims made by these unions about ‘travel chaos’ have proven to be unfounded.
“While we regret the limited strike actions that have taken place this summer, in all cases we have judiciously pre-cancelled a small number of our 2,500 daily flights in order to minimise customer disruption and inconvenience.
“We object to these lurid and inaccurate press headlines which wrongly to refer to ‘travel chaos’, despite the fact that during the seven days of partial strikes by a small minority of our pilots and cabin crew this summer, there has been very little disruption and absolutely no ‘chaos’.”
He added: “If there is a further unsuccessful cabin crew strike on the September 28 then, as we demonstrated in Germany yesterday, Ryanair will pre-advise customers of a small number of flight cancellations, and the overwhelming majority of Ryanair’s flights and services that day will operate as normal, and we will carry the overwhelming majority of the 400,000 passengers who will be scheduled to fly with us that day.”