Pilots at Stansted vote to turn down Ryanair pay offer

PILOTS at Ryanair’s biggest base have rejected a pay deal offered by the company to end the fallout from the flights cancellation crisis that has gripped the carrier.

The offer, including pay increases of up to £22,000 (€24,500), was rejected by a margin of 61pc to 39pc by pilots based in Stansted in London.

The vote puts pilots at the airline’s biggest base on a collision course with management in the midst of the crisis that has struck the company since it announced mass flight cancellations in September. In a statement, Ryanair said it was “surprised” by the outcome of the secret ballot. The airline said pilots at more than 10 of its almost 90 European bases have voted in favour of new pay offers.

The pay hike deal was conditional on pilots agreeing to continue to negotiate with the company through 87 individual base Employee Representative Committees (ERCs) rather than a single company-wide pilot representation committee, which some pilots are demanding in order to strengthen their negotiating position with the company.

A number of Ryanair pilots from bases across Europe have recently established a European Employee Representation Committee (EERC). They want the airline to deal with the EERC in order to make collective agreements across the airline’s base network, rather than the airline inking deals with the individual base ERCs. Ryanair has refused to interact with the EERC.

Ryanair has cancelled 18,000 flights between November and March next year after a management failure to roster enough pilots to staff planes. Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected. The company is under particular pressure to retain senior captains, who are now being offered pay boosts and bonuses by Ryanair. However, a spokesman for the company has insisted it was not in the grip of a cancellations crisis.