Ryanair’s has announced plans to cut its Dublin based fleet from 30 to 24 aircraft during winter 2018.
The budget carrier said the decision comes after rapid growth of Ryanair’s Polish charter airline and a downturn in forward bookings and airfares in Ireland.
It said this was partly as a result of recent rolling strikes by Irish pilots, which has had a negative effect on short lead-in high-fare bookings and forward air fares as “consumer confidence in the reliability of our Irish flight schedules has been disturbed”.
Ryanair’s Polish airline, Ryanair Sun, will now offer over 10 aircraft to Polish tour operators, more than double the five aircraft offered in Summer 2018.
The carrier said it expects few route closures from Dublin, although some may suffer frequency reductions.
Having been approved by the Ryanair board the airline has issued letters of (90 days) protective notice to over 100 pilots and over 200 cabin crew employees, whose services may not be required from October 28, due to this 20% reduction in the Dublin fleet.
Ryanair will now begin the consultations with its people on redundancy, which, if necessary, will be determined by the carrier’s assessment of flight performance, productivity, attendances, and base transfer requests.
Ryanair will be offering transfers to Poland, and possibly some other bases, to these Dublin based pilots and cabin crew employees for Winter 2018 in order to minimise any redundancies.
Ryanair chief operating officer Peter Bellew said: “We regret these base aircraft reductions at Dublin for Winter 2018, but the board has decided to allocate more aircraft to those markets where we are enjoying strong growth (such as Poland), and this will result in some aircraft reductions and job cuts in country markets where business has weakened, or forward bookings are being damaged by rolling strikes by Irish pilots.
“Ryanair operates a fleet of over 450 aircraft from 87 bases across Europe. We can only do so if we continue to offer low fares, reliable flight services to our customers, and if our reputation for reliability or forward bookings is affected, then base and potential job cuts such as these at Dublin are a deeply regretted consequence”.