What’s next?

As you read in the article above, the battle is not over at Ryanair. However, we have all the best reasons for hope now.

Many parameters are in our favor. We have the support of the passengers (many spoke up against Ryanair’s practices and decided to boycott the air- line until they provide fairer working conditions); of the politicians at Belgian level (our Minister of Employment, Kris Peeters, urged Ryanair at sever- al occasions to come to an agreement with us and argued that March 2020 was too late for the applica- tion of Belgian Labor Law); of European politicians (Marianne Thyssen made it very clear on 26 Septem- ber towards Michael O’Leary that Belgian law must be applied); and of the whole aviation community.

So, what are the next steps?

On 5 October, BeCA sent a letter toRyanair, asking to clarify their position regarding the exact date for the application of Belgian Labor Law. Indeed, Michael O’Leary had stated
during a press conference in Brussels on 27 September that he had agreed to apply Belgian Labor Law as of “early January 2019”, information that was then confirmed by a news on Ryanair’s corporate website and by Peter Bellew during a visit to Brussels-Zaventem airport on 2 October. These claims however contradict what they said in their letter of 18 September, where they wanted to postpone the appli- cation of Belgian Labor Law till March 2020.

We therefore took this opportunity to ask them to clarify their position.

At the time of publication, we have not received any response yet. We don’t expect a positive result tomorrow, but hopefully in the coming weeks. But we can’t promise the 28 September was the last strike: it may take a few more to get what we legiti- mately want. So a bit more patience! We are almost there!