Section:GDN 1N PaGe:6 Edition Date:190801 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 31/7/2019 18:49 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
- The Guardian Thursday 1 August 2019
(^6) National
BA loses high
court appeal
to stop pilots
striking over
summer
Ryanair
boss tells
staff to
prepare for
900 job cuts
Rob Davies
Strikes by British Airways pilots could
disrupt hundreds of thousands of
holidaymakers after the airline lost a
second legal attempt to block indus-
trial action.
The court of appeal upheld a verdict
by the high court last week that dis-
missed BA’s argument that the strike
ballot was invalid. The pilots’ union,
Balpa, can now proceed with planned
strikes with two weeks’ notice.
Mark Sweney
Michael O’Leary has told Ryanair
staff to prepare for 900 job cuts as
he warned that the budget airline’s
expansion plans would be slowed
dramatically following the ground-
ing of the Boeing 737 Max.
In a video message to employees the
Ryanair CEO said he had an excess of
more than 500 pilots and about 400
cabin crew. On top of that he said the
airline would need 600 fewer people
in those roles next summer than it
had planned for before the worldwide
grounding of the Max aircraft follow-
ing two fatal crashes.
O’Leary said the offi cial number
of jobs to be cut would be known
by the end of this month following
negotiations with airports and unions.
Jobs will go in September and October
and after Christmas.
Ryanair employs 17,000 people in
total, and with 5,500 pilots, the job
cuts suggest one in 10 pilots will go.
The airline employs more than 9,
cabin crew and has a further 1,
ground operations and maintenance
staff , with the rest in administrative,
IT and management roles.
It said its wage bill increased by 17%
year-on-year, from €633m (£577m) to
€738.5m, due to factors including a
20% pay increase to retain pilots and
a 2% staff pay rise.
“We over the next couple of weeks
will be doing our very best to minimise
job losses, but some are unavoidable
Talks between the union and BA
aimed at reaching a compromise
restarted yesterday and could con-
tinue until Friday.
Balpa’s general secretary, Brian
Strutton , said: “BA’s attempt to defeat
the democratic view of their pilots in
court, rather than deal with us across
the negotiating table, has sadly wasted
huge amounts of time and money
that could have been put into fi nding
a peaceful resolution. Now the win-
dow for negotiation and compromise
is closing fast. Our ballot returned 93%
in favour of strike action. There is a
at this time,” O’Leary said in the video.
The company had also been hampered
by the rate of staff leaving “dry[ing]
up to eff ectively zero ”, according to
O’Leary, in the wake of the pay deals
following a unionisation drive.
Ryanair has been heavily aff ected
by the grounding of the Boeing 737
Max. The airline has 135 on order and
last month it cut the number it expects
to be delivered in time to fl y next sum-
mer from 58 to 30. It had been banking
on the plane to deliver fuel and capac-
ity effi ciencies to cut costs.
O’Leary, who in February agreed
a new fi ve-year contract to remain
group chief executive of Europe’s larg-
est budget airline until 31 July 2024 ,
received salary, bonus and share-based
payments totalling €3.37m last year.
Under the terms of his new deal his
€1m annual salary will be halved and
his maximum annual bonus, currently
also €1m, will top out at €500,000. In
addition, he will no longer be part of
Ryanair’s long-term incentive share
award scheme, from which he received
€1.5m last year, according to the air-
line’s annual report.
However, O’Leary has negotiated
a deal to receive 10m shares, worth
almost €100m at Ryanair’s current
share price of €9.50, if he can hit one of
two stretching targets in the next fi ve
fi nancial years. He is already Ryanair’s
fi fth-biggest shareholder with a 3.9%
stake, some 44m shares worth €418m
at the current stock market price.
O’Leary will receive the shares if he
can boost annual net income to more
than €2bn or if the airline’s share price
goes above €21 for 28 days at any point
over the next fi ve years.
Ryanair’s share price has not hit €
since the late 1990s but managed to
reach a high of €19.61 in June 2017. Last
year it reported a 39% slump in post-
tax profi ts, the closest equivalent to
net income, to €885m blaming factors
including the falling price of tickets,
competition, a 20% pay increase to
stop pilots leaving and soaring fuel
costs. In recent years profi ts have been
as high as €1.5bn. The company said
the rest of its senior management had
agreed to accept a pay freeze for the
year to the end of March 2020.
serious issue here and BA has refused
to help us tackle it.”
BA said: “We are disappointed that
[Balpa] has chosen to threaten the hol-
idays of thousands of our customers
this summer.
“While no strike dates have yet been
issued by Balpa, and they are required
to give us 14 days’ notice of any inten-
tion to call strike action, we ask our
customers to review their contact
details by visiting ba.com , or by con-
tacting their travel agent.
“Our proposed pay deal of 11.5%
over three years is fair and, by contrast
to Balpa, has been accepted by the
members of the Unite and GMB trade
unions, which represent nearly 90% of
all British Airways colleagues.”
Pilots are seeking an above-infl ation
pay settlement that would include a
profi t-share scheme, refl ecting their
argument that they took pay cuts when
BA was struggling as a result of the
fi nancial crisis and that they should
share in the benefi t now the business
has recovered.
Separately, planned strikes by air-
port workers could disrupt fl ights at
Heathrow from tomorrow.
Ryanair has
been hit by a
rising wage
bill, lower
ticket prices
and delays in
acquiring the
new Boeing 737
Max aircraft
PHOTOGRAPH:
NIALL CARSON/PA
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