A Ryanair commercial passenger jet is seen at Barcelona El-Prat Airport in Barcelona, Spain, October 10, 2017. Picture taken October 10, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
December 15, 2017
DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ryanair on Friday announced that it would recognize pilot unions for the first time in its 32-year history in a bid to stop the first pilot strike in its history from taking place later in the day.
Chief Executive Michael O’Leary’s refusal to recognize unions was at the heart of the ultra low-cost model he developed to turn a small Irish regional airline into Europe’s largest carrier by passenger numbers.
“Recognizing unions will be a significant change for Ryanair, but we have delivered radical change before,” O’Leary said in a statement. “We hope and expect that these structures can and will be agreed with our pilots early in the New Year.”
(Reporting by Conor Humphries; editing by Jason Neely)
