Ryanair wins court bid to block Irish pilot strikes
Ryanair has been granted an injunction by the Irish High Court to stop a 48-hour strike by its pilots in the country after the airline's lawyers argued that the union representing around 180 of the pilots had announced the industrial action before discussions had been concluded.
The pilots had been set to strike on Thursday and Friday but Justice MacDonald told the Dublin court that he would restrain the Forsa union "from directly or indirectly, organising, directing or endorsing" such action.
Ryanair welcomed the verdict and said all flights will take off as normal from Irish airports.
A statement tweeted by the company said: "Ryanair calls on the Forsa union, and this small minority of very well paid Irish pilots, to return to mediation under Mr Kieran Mulvey so that any disputes can be resolved without unnecessarily disrupting the travel plans of thousands of Irish passengers and their families."
The budget airline is still awaiting a verdict from a London court regarding a much larger proposed strike by its UK -based pilots.
Pilots based in the UK and Ireland had voted in favour of strike action earlier in August following a pay dispute, with the British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) accusing Ryanair of "bully boy" tactics after it moved to block the strikes through courts in London and Dublin.
Brian Strutton, general secretary of Balpa, said: "Their attempt to block lawful strike action is just another demonstration of the bullying tactics the airline appears to favour. It means that all the time that could have been used to try to find a resolution will have been spent preparing for court action."
The union also raised concerns that Ryanair was continuing to sell flights scheduled for strike days as passengers might not be paid compensation should any flights be cancelled or delayed, with the airline having previously refused to return money to customers in 2018 when similar strike action resulted in disruption to thousands of journeys.