Danish unions fail to take up Ryanair offer.
Ryanair confirmed that its one based aircraft in Copenhagen will transfer to Kaunas today, Tuesday 14 July next as the Danish Unions rejected Ryanair’s offer to suspend their threatened sympathy action at Copenhagen airport (from 18 July) despite the fact that these Unions admit that they have no members among Ryanair’s Copenhagen pilots or cabin crew.
As a result of this transfer, Ryanair’s aircraft, pilots and cabin crew jobs will now be moved to Kaunas in Lithuania where the aircraft will continue to fly to/from Copenhagen, but without any Danish Collective Agreement, and since Ryanair no longer has a base in Copenhagen, the sympathy strikes threatened by the Danish Unions cannot now take place from 18 July onwards.
Ryanair’s Eddie Wilson said: “This is the latest failure of the Danish Unions, who continue to operate an anti-competitive “closed shop” where Danish citizens (Ryanair pilots) and other European Nationals (Ryanair cabin crew) see their jobs exported outside Denmark by the actions of Danish Unions (who don’t represent them) who have previously destroyed other Danish airlines (Sterling and Maersk) because they are inflexible and unable to adapt to modern air travel where customers want low fares and efficiency not high costs, unionised inflexibility and inefficiencies”.
“This is a black day for the Danish economy. Here you have Danish Unions who admit they don’t have any members in Ryanair, destroying highly paid jobs for Danish pilots and cabin crew here in Copenhagen with the sole effect that those jobs now get exported overseas yet the fights to/from Copenhagen, the low fares and the competition with SAS will continue.”
As this week’s press conference confirmed, Ryanair’s pay and conditions for its pilots and cabin crew is better than the Danish Collective Agreement (which among other things allows pilots and cabin crew to be suspended without pay during winter months) and yet outdated Danish Labour Laws allow non-Ryanair employees to blockade our aircraft and passengers in Copenhagen solely because the aircraft is based in Copenhagen. By moving the aircraft outside of Denmark, these blockades will now be illegal and so the Danish Unions have achieved nothing other than to export highly paid Danish jobs (and taxes) overseas.
John Dybart of the Danish Unions this week claimed that “Ryanair was bluffing” when we threatened to close the whole Copenhagen base. Perhaps now he will realise that the Danish economy and the Danish Unions cannot succeed by forcing Danish jobs overseas. Perhaps Mr Dybart will now call for the Danish offices of Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other non-Union companies in Denmark to be closed since their employees, like Ryanair and other multinationals, don’t recognise Danish Unions either.
Ryanair will continue to grow in Copenhagen airport. All of these flights will now take place on aircraft based outside of Denmark which demonstrates that the Danish Model, cannot work in the airline industry where the aircraft and jobs are mobile. We will continue to work with our partners in Copenhagen airport and Danish tourism as we invest in and grow traffic in Denmark, and we hope in time the Danish Unions will find a way to support high paid job creation here in Copenhagen instead of wasting time and money exporting Danish jobs overseas”.
Ryanair launched “Keep Greece flying” campaign
Also, Ryanair launched a campaign to “Keep Greece Flying”, by dropping prices on its Athens routes to/from Chania, Rhodes and Thessaloniki, while cutting fares on its international routes to/from Greece by 30%.
Ryanair had offered to drop its Greek domestic fares to €0 for the next two weeks if the HCCA and Athens Airport dropped their development fees and airport fees to zero for this period, but the Greek Government have declined this offer.
Nonetheless, Ryanair will continue to “Keep Greece Flying” by dropping fares on its Greek domestic routes between Athens and Chania, Rhodes and Thessaloniki to just €4.99 for travel from Monday, 13 July to Sunday, 26 July.
Ryanair has also launched a Greek seat sale, with 30% off fares on its international routes to/from Greece, for travel from 13 July to the end of October. These domestic and international seat sales are available for booking on the Ryanair.com website from today until Friday, 17 July.
Ryanair’s Chief Commercial Officer, David O’Brien, said: “It’s disappointing that the Greek Government has declined Ryanair’s offer of free domestic flights for Greek citizens. However, we will continue to “Keep Greece Flying” by cutting Greek domestic fares to just €4.99 for two weeks (travel from Mon 13th July until Sun, 26th July).
We are also cutting 30% off our fares on international routes to/from Greece, for travel from Monday 13th July until the end of October. These sale fares are available for booking for one week on the Ryanair.com website (ending on Friday, 17th July).
Greek consumers and visitors can rest assured that Ryanair remains committed to growing in Greece and we will continue to stimulate travel and tourism in Greece by working with our partners in the Greek airports and Greek Government at this time of economic crisis.”
Photo caption: Kaunas Airport.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
