Ryanair reduces its fleet in Dublin from 30 to 24 aircraft for the winter season in 2018, putting 300 jobs at risk.
The six airplanes will be transferred to the Polish charter airline of the low-cost carrier, which in its words is growing rapidly. Ryanair has cited the smaller number of pre-booking and lower airfare prices in Ireland as a reason for the decision, partly as a result of recent Irish pilots strikes.
About 100 pilots and 200 cabin crew members have received a 90-day advance notice. The airline said their services could become unnecessary after October 28th. It added that would offer transfers to Poland and possibly other bases to reduce the number of redundancies to a minimum.
Earlier this week, Ryanair reported that its April-June profit was hurt due to higher wage costs, as the airline faces employees strikes because of wages and working conditions.
It pointed out that higher oil prices and ticket prices also negatively affected the profit, which declined by 20% to 319 million EUR.
Ryanair faces more strikes. Cabin crews in Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Italy stop working on Wednesday and Thursday, which will require the cancellation of 600 flights.
The Chief Operating Officer, Peter Bellew, said the board of directors has decided to target more aircraft to markets where the airline is enjoying strong growth.
“This will reduce aircraft and job cuts in countries where business is weakening or reservations have been hit by strikes by Irish pilots”, said Peter Bellew. “If our reputation for reliability or pre-reservation is affected, job cuts, like the situation in Dublin, are a result we can only regret”, added he.
