'Deeply regrettable' strike action impacts 40,000 Ryanair customers

Strikes have forced Irish carrier Ryanair to cancel hundreds of flights today, affecting as many as 40,000 passengers.

The Irish airline cancelled 150 flights in response to striking pilots in Belgium and the Netherlands. But additional action, this time from German pilots, made the carrier cancel a further 100.

The cancellations account for around 10% of Ryanair’s 2,400 scheduled Friday flights.

The ongoing row over contracts and conditions will see cabin crews across Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy all go on strike, according to the BBC.

Unions are demanding that Ryanair give staff contracts in the countries where they live. Currently, they fall under Irish law.

Chief exec Michael O’Leary said the airline had written to unions and offered to move all staff to local contracts, making industrial action “unnecessary”.

However Dutch pilots union VNV said Ryanair only verbally offered its members local contracts and refused to put it in writing.

Ryanair chief operations officer Peter Bellew called the strikes “deeply regrettable”, adding: “It is deeply disappointing that some of our customers and our people in Germany […] will have their flights disrupted by an unnecessary strike called at short notice.”

The disruption is yet to impact British passengers, with very few flights into and out of the UK affected.

Around 20 UK flights had been cancelled, mostly to and from Germany, according to the Independent’s Simon Calder said Stansted Airport.