Throughout July, 4.4 million passengers flew to destinations across Europe.  Ryanair will continue to increase its flight frequencies throughout August with more than 1,600 routes and over 11,000 weekly flights across its network.

RyanAir’s CEO Eddie Wildon stated:

« We were pleased to see our people and customers adopt to our healthy flying measures, and encourage all those travelling with us in August to continue to do so. As traveller confidence returns, we look forward to welcoming back our customers, who can fly on the lowest fares to over 200 destinations across Europe. We’re also proud to play our part in helping Europe’s tourism industry take off again.. »

Since the resumption of our schedule in late June, passenger numbers have continued to grow and as a result, we’re delighted to announce that our flight schedule is set to increase to more than 60% in August 🛫

— Ryanair (@Ryanair) August 6, 2020

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Earlier in the year it had announced the new routes that will be offered starting Winter 2019-20. The new routes from Brussels Airport are Catania (Sicily in Italy), Essaouira (Morocco), Kraków (Poland), Pisa (Italy) and Seville (Spain).

From Brussels Airport:

• 5 new routes to Catania (2 per week)
• Essaouira (2 per week)
• Krakow (4 per week)
• Pisa (3 per week)
• Seville (4 per week)

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The reason behind the day of action is the decision announced by Ryanair during the summer of cutting 900 employees (out of 13.000) and closing four bases in Europe. The announcement has already generated several strikes in different European countries, and many others are expected for the day of action.

Belgium is the country that has been affected the less by the Ryanair’s restructuring plan. In fact, none of the Belgian bases has been involved and agreements for cabin crew and pilots have been carried out with the company.  Therefore, it is still unknown if also in Belgium the action will take the form of a strike. For the moment only a “solidarity action” has been announced.

The post Ryanair’s Belgian staff announces a day of “international solidarity” on September 27 appeared first on Brussels Express.

From Zaventem

4 new routes to: Amman, Barcelona, Marrakesh, and Pisa

From Charleroi

2 new routes to: Banja Luka and Palermo

Ryanair’s CEO, Michael O’Leary said, « To celebrate the launch of our Brussels summer 2019 schedule we are releasing seats for sale from just €14.99 for travel until December which are available for booking until midnight Thursday, October 11th. Since these amazing low prices will be snapped up quickly, customers should log on now to avoid missing out.”

The post After a period of strikes Ryanair tries to revitalize its image in Belgium with 6 new routes appeared first on Brussels Express.

The letters that the European Commissioner for Social Affairs, Marianne Thyssen, or the Minister of Economy and Employment, Kris Peeters, sent to the airline at low cost has had a fairly limited effect, reported BeCA.

There are, of course, ongoing proceedings in Belgium, such as an investigation by the labor audit bureau.

« We met twice in joint committee at the FPS Employment with Ryanair, without having any influence from the work of the labor auditor, » said commander Alain Vanalderweireldt, president of BeCA.

Vanalderweireldt wants an immediate intervention by the authorities to encourage Ryanair to move in the right direction, which is « inescapable », and recognize the Belgian labor law. 

Across Europe, employees and their representatives demand enforcement of national labor law and not just Irish legislation. But the company refuses to undertake such an approach.

« We haven’t yet seen any will to negotiate from Ryanair’s management during our meetings the past six months. For every step forward, we take two back, » said Alain Vanalderweireldt.

Will there be another pilots strike in the coming days and weeks?

« It all depends on the reaction of the company, » says the president of the BeCA, which recalls the episode of letters of ‘no show’ after the cabin crew’s strike in late July.

« We’re hoping for an opening after Friday’s action. We are eager to see open doors and not foolish statements. »

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The remark Peeters made on Twitter on Monday refers directly to the strike the pilots and flight attendants started in July. More than 600 flights were cancelled last month across Europe.

Although the right to strike is supposed to be a fundamental right in most Western countries, the executive management sent a special warning last week to the strikers: if the employees go on strike again, they might be sacked for gross misconduct without any compensation.

“The right of strike is clear: the employees cannot be sacked on the basis of the participation to a strike,” Peeters told De Morgen, before pointing out the fact that the strikers have planned the action in a regular way.

There are two sides of the coin. Consumers of course complain about the disruptions and the cancellations, which could make their holidays more complicated. And the EU rules on compensation might be “smartly” interpreted by the airlines in order to avoid any compensation for those who have missed their flights and connections.

The other side of the coin directly refers to the social conditions that apply to the employees. For years and years, the unions have called the EU and national institutions to take measures to fight against the social model Ryanair has been implementing. The pilots and flight attendants are the subject of atypical work conditions. They might be asked to be freelancers and work on behalf of the company.

Pilots sent an open letter to both, Violeta Bulc, EU commissioner in charge of transport, and Marianne Thyssen, EU commissioner in charge of social affairs, where they reiterate their call to change the legislation.

Although the European and Belgian consumers love the low-cost companies in many sectors, it’s still worth having a look at all the cards on the table.

The post Belgian Minister of Employment reacts on Twitter to Ryanair’s strike appeared first on Brussels Express.

The company has been under fire over the last week after announcing the cancellation of thousands of flights. Despite this recent negative event, the low-cost airline launched a one-way promotion. This Monday until 11:59 pm the Irish area company will put on sale one million tickets.

Good to know:
This promotion covers the following period: October 2017 until February 2017.

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Cancelled flights from or to Brussels:

• 18/09 – Brussels to Dublin – Flight Number: 1453
• 19/09 – Brussels Charleroi to Madrid – Flight Number: 5463
• 20/09 – Brussels to Barcelona – Flight Number: 2917
• 20/09 – Brussels Charleroi to Bologna – Flight Number: 2917
• 20/09 – Brussels Charleroi to Copenhagen – Flight Number: 201
• 20/09 – Brussels Charleroi to Bordeaux – Flight Number: 1388
• 20/09 – Copenhagen to Brussels Charleroi – Flight Number: 200

Ryanair statement:

The full list of these flight cancellations (from Thurs 21st to Thurs Oct 31st) will appear on the Ryanair.com website later today, and customers affected by these cancellations will be emailed with offers of alternative flights or full refunds, and details of their EU261 compensation entitlement.

The airports where one line of flying will be removed for the next 6 weeks are as follows, (these airports have been selected because of the high frequency of flights Ryanair operates to/from these airports where customers can be offered the most accommodating options):

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said:

“While over 98% of our customers will not be affected by these cancellations over the next 6 weeks, we apologise unreservedly to those customers whose travel will be disrupted, and assure them that we have done our utmost to try to ensure that we can re-accommodate most of them on alternative flights on the same or next day.

Ryanair is not short of pilots – we were able to fully crew our peak summer schedule in June, July and August – but we have messed up the allocation of annual leave to pilots in Sept and Oct because we are trying to allocate a full year’s leave into a 9 month period from April to December. This issue will not recur in 2018 as Ryanair goes back onto a 12 month calendar leave year from 1st Jan to 31st December 2018.

This is a mess of our own making. I apologise sincerely to all our customers for any worry or concern this has caused them over the past weekend. We have only taken this decision to cancel this small proportion of our 2,500 daily flights so that we can provide extra standby cover and protect the punctuality of the 98% of flights that will be unaffected by these cancellations.”

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