Ryanair pilots take pay cut to avoid job losses
Ryanair's UK-based pilots have voted to take pay cuts.
Their union said 96% backed the temporary measure, in a bid to stop job losses.
Europe’s biggest budget airline may still see wider redundancies though.
Earlier boss Michael O’Leary warned up to 3,000 jobs were at risk.
He said avoiding that would require pay cuts from cabin crew, as well as pilots.
There are some glimmers of hope.
O’Leary said Wednesday (July 1) that bookings were now ‘very strong’.
He hopes August passenger numbers will get back to around half their usual level.
"So I think numbers will return reasonably quickly... So, summer '21, we expect to be carrying the summer '19 passenger volumes, back on track for a 150 million passengers. But I think pricing will take another year or two - it could be summer '22, summer '23 before we see a return to pre-COVID pricing, but much of that depends on how much capacity gets taken out by our competitors."
Rivals certainly are reducing capacity.
On Wednesday easyJet said it would cut jobs, planes and maybe all domestic flights in Germany.
That a day after it said more than 700 of its UK-based pilots were at risk.
In May it said it needed to lose 4,500 posts overall.
Meanwhile Air France is expected to shed 7,600 jobs in a restructuring plan set to be announced this week.
