Ryanair has said it expects “zero disruptions” to its flight schedule to and from Spain for the remainder of the summer, despite a new round of crew strike action.
The airline will operate 3,000 flights to and from Spain across August and September, but it expects to see no disruption to its services despite a new round of strike action beginning this week.
The airline has already weathered pilot strikes in Portugal, France, Italy, Belgium and Spain this summer.
However, it has mainly attributed any disruption it has actually seen this summer to flight delays and air traffic controller strikes.
This third round of cabin crew strike action is estimated to last beyond the busy Christmas period.
The latest action centres around 1,600 workers represented by the smaller USO and Sitcpla trade unions. Ryanair already has, in place, a labour agreement with the main Spanish cabin crew union, the CCOO.
Despite Ryanair’s claims, it has been estimated that 1.4 million passengers could be affected within the first two weeks of the new strikes. But, the airline has dismissed the notion of any negative effects for customers.
“These two tiny unions who represent only a handful of our Spanish cabin crew have held a number of poorly supported “strikes” in June and July which have had little or no impact on Ryanair’s flights to or from Spain,” a Ryanair spokesperson said.
“In July, alone, Ryanair operated over 3,000 daily flights and carried a record 16.8 million passengers – many of them to/from Spain. Ryanair expects that these latest threatened strikes, which involve only a handful of our Spanish cabin crew, will have zero impact on our Spanish flights or schedules in August or September,” they said.
“While a tiny number of Ryanair flights in Spain were cancelled or delayed in July, this was mostly due to ATC strikes and flight delays. No flights were cancelled in July due to these unsuccessful and poorly supported strikes by these two minority unions (USO & SITCPLA) who represent only a small handful of Ryanair Spanish cabin crew,“ they said.
Meanwhile, Ryanair has also launched direct flights from Dublin to Agadir in Morocco from this winter.
