By Geoff Percival
Ryanair has said it is working to reach deals with European trade unions by Christmas and get them implemented next year.
“We want to have agreements in place with crew and pilots by Christmas,” the airline’s chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said.
He added that the airline had accepted demands from Spanish unions to hire local staff on Spanish contracts.
Ryanair shares fell further despite upbeat latest traffic figures from the airline.
The company, on Monday, issued what was effectively a profit warning for its current financial year, significantly lowering its profit guidance for the 12 months to the end of next March and saying it may be lowered again in the coming months depending on further strike action.
The airline’s shares plummeted by close to 13% on Monday, wiping around €2bn off its value after the news, and closed down a further 1.2% yesterday, having been down over 2% in earlier trading.
This was despite Ryanair reporting a 6% year-on-year increase in traffic for September to 12.6 million customers.
Total traffic, when recently-acquired Austrian budget carrier Laudamotion is included, grew by 11% to 13.1 million passengers.
Meanwhile, Ryanair has also announced a new route from Dublin to Bordeaux.
The twice-weekly service will start in April and will form part of Ryanair’s Summer 2019 schedule.
The airline is also set to start a twice-weekly service between Shannon and Ibiza as part of its next summer schedule, running the route between early April and the end of October.
Additional reporting, Reuters
