Ryanair weighs forced day off for pilots to avoid summer squeeze

Ryanair Holdings Plc is seeking to allocate one day of forced leave in the first quarter to each pilot to ensure full staffing during the busy summer travel period, setting up a potential clash with cockpit crew resisting the move. 

The Irish budget carrier said it needs to apportion the day after finding insufficient leave assigned on rosters in the January-March period, according to memos sent to pilots across Europe in December. In a letter to Italy-based Malta Air pilots, Ryanair urged employees to voluntarily apply for more ad hoc leave in the first quarter to avoid the company assigning them days instead.

The Ryanair Transnational Pilot Group said Ryanair’s move indicates a general pilot shortage as well as “a significant lack of regard and contempt toward pilots,” according to a letter shared on social media site X. The group said pilots should only be allocated forced leave when they have not applied for ad hoc days by a certain date in each quarter, and that Ryanair management is to blame for what it called planning mistakes.

“The distribution and allocation of annual leave this winter is fully in compliance with our union-negotiated Collective Labour Agreements and stringent flight time limitations which restrict pilots to flying a maximum of 900 hours in a year, an average of less than 18 hours per week,” a Ryanair spokesperson said.

Summer is the most important season for airlines because it’s the time of the year when carriers makes most of their money from passengers going on vacation. Any shortfall of pilots risks delays and cancellations, which companies strive to avoid, following the chaos two years ago amid the rapid rebound in travel demand after the pandemic.

Ryanair wrote in its memo that the annual leave system depends on an adequate spread of time off across the year, particularly in the low travel season when people don’t fly as much. Pilots typically work rosters of five days on and four days off. Their annual leave consists of ad hoc days, which can be used at short-notice, and block leave, which includes five consecutive days off. 

The airline spokesperson said Ryanair was fully crewed for pilots and that applications were at record levels, calling claims of a shortage “baseless and false.”