Ryanair France demands 20% pay cut for flight-crew to avoid redundancies
 

In today's Guardian, proposed 20% cut for flight-crew and 10% for cabin-crew, to be raised back to current level by 2025.

Can't post link. Search for Ryanair France redundancy blackmail

This article;

https://www.theguardian.com/business...20July%202025.

This story said that MOL himself took a 50% pay cut already. Although 50% of his salary may mean less to him than 20% does to flight-crew or 10% does to cabin-crew.

Unfortunately this will be happening within many airlines and other industries as well.

2025? That is a loooong time.....

@jmmoric yes that is a long time. Also, it is not clear what 'current level' means:

If not adjusted for inflation, 'current level' could be substantially less in 5 years time than it is worth today.

Right now, hardly any opportunities exist even for rated and highly experienced pilots. Most companies don't even accept applications any longer as hundreds of unneeded CVs represent no value in times like this. And, unfortunately, that will most probably be the case until late 2020 or early 2021 in the most optimistic scenario. And even then, there will be far less openings than candidates for quite a while. So, for now, almost every deal is a good one. Especially considering that a pilot salary reduced by 20% will still be more than what you are likely to get in any of the ground jobs you can realistically get without relevant experience. I wouldn't worry too much about the prospects into 2025 right now. Whenever things pick up and alternative, better-paid opportunities start coming up and cause a mass exodus of everyone considering themselves underpaid, T&Cs will inevitably be reviewed towards more favorable ones. It has happened a number of times, it will happen again.

That is being proposed across the whole network to those directly employed. Every single country. Also, in some video conference they stated that taking a 20%-10% pay cut will NOT rule out redundancies and future recruitment.

Contractors already got a 20% pay cut addendum as a take it now or your contract will be immediately terminated.

Right now, the chance of a 20% cut to stay in employment against dig your heels in and end up joining the thousands of unemployed pilots looking for jobs, a 20% pay cut sounds a good deal.

Go tell Malta based crews that signed the “good deal” and still got fired.

Sounds as if MOL will offer that to all pilots then .... accept 5 year pay cut .... or he willl fire all pilots ...then re-employ only those he wants or needs.
Nasty .

The across the board paycut was certainly what MoL said on the Robert Peston Show a couple of nights back, with lesser cuts to the lower paid. He also got asked about his own pay and claimed that he was leading from the front with a 50% paycut. Should be available on ITVPlayer somewhere if you want to watch it.

"Go tell Malta based crews that signed the “good deal” and still got fired."

Did it make any difference in lay-off terms signing or not ?

Very true, and I am sure many will take it.

Monarch asked us to take a supposedly temporary 10% pay cut (after a difficult summer), that would supposedly be paid back*, which the majority voted for. We all kept our jobs, but it only delayed the subsequent failing of the company. I would bet money that the 20% pay cut cited here will never be restored in future years.

If I was in Ryanair and asked to take this pay cut, I probably would, but I would also start re-training for a non-flying job, and tightening my belt, finance-wise. The flying might continue for a couple more years - until the next crisis, or downward push on wages - during which time one could gain a new qualification.

*I took the 2 months off option instead, so at least I got something in return for my pay cut :)

Well one might carefully argue that if everyone collectively said no Ryanair would have to rethink the strategy. This might require a unionised workforce which seem to be an issue for Ryanair employees. Ryanair are expanding in France and the French media is already discussing the blackmail tactics of the company to introduce payouts. It will not be easy for Malta Air to fire and rehire in the same bases under the scrutiny of the French government that is paying for the furlough for these pilots.

Supply and demand. The best contracts and the best deals for cadets and non-rated crew were offered in the 2016-2018 period, when RYR had a great demand for crew at many bases. Even type ratings funded by the company, something that had been unheard of ever since in RYR, went big at some point. That was all culled by the 737MAX crisis in 2019 and further hamstrung by the lack of demand for flying in 2020. Now, as the boot is on the other foot and you would be lucky to have any paid flying job, T&Cs are going back down. Type ratings will likely become self-funded again as well. All that until they start experiencing a shortage of personnel again. Which I don't see happening for at least 2 or 3 years from now, until all the unemployed 737 drivers out there get jobs. And there are loads of them now, especially in the light of the situation in Norwegian.

This is why other airlines have unions and collective contracts in place. There has to be a balance between supply and demand and job security and common decency. Ryanair is not a failing company. They’ll be hitting record profits from next year and onwards until the next major crisis but their crew will be taking a 5 year paycut in the meantime. This is blackmail and extortion tactics which has to be stopped or there’ll be nothing left to fight for. Even throughout the good years Ryanair didn’t increase terms and conditions for their experienced crew and they will not do it when things pick back up.

Ryanair has also got unions and collective contracts in place. Covid-19 has brought airlines down to their knees so I doubt there will be any record profits next year or the year after. Terms and conditions in Ryanair did increase over the last few years so you seem to be misinformed.

Well if Ryanair doesn’t end up with a very healthy profit for next year I’ll be happy to say I was wrong.

When you write your terms improved I suppose you are referring to the collective agreements agreed in France and Italy primarily? I have first hand knowledge with these. The French contract is worth 30 percent less than the equivalent easyJet one. You wonder how the conditions are so much worse for a pilot doing exactly the same job in the same base, flying the same routes in a similar size aircraft.. and now a 20 percent reduction. Sorry but explaining it with supply and demand as it is somehow reasonable is the reason why Rayanair pilots are in this situation in the first place.
It’s a difficult situation for everyone and I hope the Ryanair pilots will fight for their terms and conditions that they’ve earned like everyone else.

I'll say the exact same thing I said in the Norweigen thread.. RYR pilots were happy to turn a blind eye to every shyster move their employer used in bases accross Europe over the last decade to divide and conquer the employees and drive down T & C's accross the whole continent. Don't come looking to the rest of us for sympathy when the chickens come home to roost. It's like the expat pilots crying foul in the Saudi thread, it's all good in the boom times and screw everyone else, until it isn't.

MC,

The fact that you actually believe the difference in T&C’s is because of a difference in tax here in France sadly tells me a lot about how the Ryanair has managed to get their pilots to perceive their reality. And before you spend more time arguing this I am indeed with the orange brigade and I do have a copy of the french Ryanair contract to compare with.
In France you are taxed on your whole income and there are deductions afterwards depending on your personal situation and working patterns throughout the year. It’s different from the Italian contract style with a high amount of daily allowance that’s not taxed and a lower basic salary.
I do wish you the best of luck fighting for your terms. The lower Ryanair goes the lower everyone else have to follow. This is sadly the reality of European aviation and on of the main reasons there’s a lot of animosity towards Fr from pilots in other companies. You could however say the same about Wizz and a few others.

I was never with Ryanair as I was fortunate enough not to have to go down that road at any point throughout the last 20 years of flying. I also understand some people felt there was not much choice other than Ryanair. Everyone’s circumstances are different and I won’t be the judge of that.
Average tax Ezy Italy is around 30 percent due to the way the contract has been constructed. In France it’s around 50 for a captain but there’s deducting depending on your family situation.
Because of this the before-tax pay also varies from country to country.
You can only really compare contracts within the specific countries.
Anyway I wish you the best of luck. No one benefits from lower paid contracts other than the shareholders. We have a strong, state-supported Air France and believe or not that’s probably just about the best thing we can hope for in this difficult time. It’s all about benchmarking.

I understand what you’re saying MC. It’s certainly not a battle you should be fighting yourself especially in these difficult times. We all have people depending on us to pay the bills and put food on the table. This has to be the first priority for everyone.
Let’s hope for better times sooner than predicted. I think 2021 will be a very strong year for the low cost companies.

agreed. One thing that you are almost certain of when you go work for RYR (employee or contractor) is that you get shafted at one point.

It's not like you don't get shafted in all types of operations when times are bad - and there are plenty of active recent threads proving it. And unions can only do that much about it. Did any union prevent the unilateral switch to new contracts going on at BA these days for example?

Despite the impression given by some e-mails/social media posts/ rumours/press coverage about job losses or contract switches the reality is the consultation process at BA is still ongoing.

June 15th is rumoured to be the earliest date anything definite can be announced, it is only then we will see if the Unions at BA have achieved anything.

I would say 20% cut is a very generous offer by RYR. Pilot salaries will go down by 30-35% in average, some will loose 50%. It will take then 5 to 7 years to get it back to pre-covid level.

ps from late November 2020 there will be crowds of experienced and rated pilot happy to sign at 50%, but there will be no jobs :(

Why late November? Looks like it will be a lot earlier, at many places it's already a fact of life. Any opening, with the emphasis on ANY, gets instantly flooded with applications, up to the point that most carriers and agencies don't even support their online application systems any longer. And redundancies for 20-30% of the workforce with pay cuts of 20-50% for the lucky ones remaining keep coming in every day somewhere around the globe. easyJet, Emirates and Qatar Airways are the most recent examples. And, most likely, not the last ones.

So, everyone does the maths for himself/herself. Will you be better off long-term if you drop out of work for at least one or two years (doing what in the meantime, given that you can't even claim unemployment benefits on your self-employed contract?) or if you accept the new deal? Any decision on that is strictly personal and is a good one as long as the individual making it is not back crying in a couple of months.

If only people on this thread were as quick to ask for improvements on their t&c in good times as they are quick to drop their pants and bend over in this crisis...
There has never been lack of applicants for good companies, even during the boom years. Problem being most of these applicants were not able to pass the assessments and/or willing to accept the bases on offer. So the vast majority of those willing to fly for 50% can keep trying, it won't matter, as any reputable company is not going to lower their standards to accomodate them in lieu of the existing pilots.
And so far the only companies imposing and actually getting paycuts are those with no unions in place. All the other are trying, will see what they will get. Ever heard of the term negotiation?

Amen! Problem is that those flexible contract bottom feeder contractor airlines have much more capital sp they can last longer than a lot of decent companies. They will use this situation to get an even bigger piece of the market post corona. ATM there is no need to succumb to large pay cuts. Salaries are only one piece of the pie. Unfortunately in most non unionized companies there is a successful divide and conquer strategy done by management.

A Ryanair thread full of posters suggesting how wise, inevitable and even desirable a 20% pay cut would be. Go figure. Turkeys voting for Christmas? it seems rather unlikely. Some people might say that not all is what it seems here.

For sure, it's not what any pilot in his or her right mind would like to hear. But the facts stand. Hardly any European company will need the same number of pilots as in January 2019 for at least a year from now. Optimistically, summer 2021 may offer the same demand for intra-European flights as summer 2019, with long-haul lagging behind and hence affecting overall RPKs. That if we assume that the acute phase of the pandemic in Europe is about to abate in the coming month and never come back. If, Heaven forbid, there's another surge in cases and consequently a new round of travel restrictions, it can get a lot worse.

Presumably everyone knew what they were signing up for. Namely that unions, collective agreements and bargaining do not exist within the RYR group. In good times, that's not too much of a problem as the conditions get adjusted accordingly whenever people start leaving en masse and someone still needs to get those planes flying. That's market self-regulation. It's happened in past years, it will happen again at some point in the not-so-near future. In bad times, the downsides of this model start showing their ugly head - and that's the exact case now. Those gentlemen get their way through blunt force even in much better times. Whether or not you want to be a part of all this is up to you. Whether or not you have access to better alternatives in the short to medium term is also a question that everyone answers for themselves.

There is NO difference at most unionized places, unless you’re at air france or lufthansa. NO difference. You will see for yourself soon unfortunately

this has been O’Leary’s gospel for the past 20 years. It seems he managed to indoctrinate a large part of his work force to believe in this even though there’s been several attempts to unionise FR over the years some more successful than others. Ezy and FR are two very similar airlines. One unionised from the start the other not. Look at T&Cs of the two airlines and tell me again that a union makes no difference.
BA is used as an example these days of an airline were the otherwise strong union has no power but it really has very little to do with the Union it self but rather the legislation behind it. Uk employment-laws are dire and also unique in Europe. Your username indicates you want to bring back the eighties so if that works out you might want to stop Thatcher from becoming the PM. Problem solved.(the battle is not lost for our Ba colleagues yet btw)
The French employment laws protect the workers but as I’ve mentioned before it is an uphill battle to seek this protection for yourself when faced with redundancy. This is where a strong union will make a difference.
We can revisit this in a few months as the battle is only just beginning for some of the airlines but I promise you no unionised French-based airline will succumb to common blackmail.
If you still have doubts of the power of a unionised workforce have a look at the US majors. Great T&Cs and protection for their workers. Doesn’t mean people will not be made redundant but it’s not the smash and grab we're seeing in European aviation. This is one of the most liberal, non-regulated work-environments but it’s also unionised.

only a minority is unionized. To actually get some result you need at least 75% to be a member. There might be a union in Ryanair, there is however no Unity.

As Saul points out above it’s only a minority of Ryanair that’s unionised. Not enough to make it count in a situation like this. The french bases are mainly crewed by Air Malta so they are not represented by SNPL as far as I know.
There’s a lot of reasons the unions haven’t been successful with Ryanair. Main one probably the tactics of Ryanair always keeping them one step ahead of national legislation and local unions. On top of that the whole self-employment issue with everyone employed differently.
I don’t agree with their practises but they are very good at what they do. And yes this is not the time to fight without the protection of unions. I completely agree.

Sounds like BA. Sad day when companies go to these lengths to shaft their employees.

And there he/she is again bashing the Ryanair Pilots. Many of your colleagues in your precious and wonderful Jet2 are ex Ryanair but I bet you keep your mouth firmly shut when your sitting beside them. I wonder will there be 102 UK pilot redundancies in Ryanair in the coming weeks. Sad times for anyone being made redundant or indeed taking a significant pay cut. And yet still the same vitriolic rhetoric coming from keyboard toads such as yourself. Give it a rest for goodness sake!

And this is one of the problems we have in this industry, people like Whitemonk are quick to jump to the defense of their employer while belittleing everyone else's, remember people your employer will have no loyalty to you.
It is rather sad what appears to be happening at Jet2, their future is far from safe, I have been informed by some one very much in the know, that the plan is to concentrate on low cost flights for the rest of 2020 and push the holidays 2021, there is a lot of goodwill from the public towards Jet2, they do offer a very good service and were quick to refund when the crisis hit.

I'm open about how I feel about RYR and Norweigen, you don't have to agree with me, but I have a right to express my opinion. RYR make themselves easy to unlike, and a large portion of their fanboy flight deck also. It is sad but unsurprising listening to the RYR lurkers jump out of the closet at the first sign of bad news at Jet2.

For the record and maybe to help that chip off your shoulders, the redundancies are proposed and not certain. The level of communication from upper levels throughout this crisis has been IMHO very poor and some of the leadership frankly embarrassing, anyway I digress, I hope you lot are able to fight your proposed pay cuts until 2024, but I won't hold my breath.