Ryanair seals first labour deal with Italian pilots

Bloomberg

Ryanair Holdings Plc signed its first-ever union contract, granting Italian pilots perks such as severance pay in a deal the airline hopes to repeat across its network to contain a protracted labor dispute.
The deal commits Ryanair to making contributions to national health care and social-security funds as well as paternity rights, the Italian pilots union ANPAC said in a statement. A “wide majority” backed the agreement after eight months of negotiations, it said.
Winning over Italian pilots should bolster Ryanair’s hopes ahead of similar negotiations with unions elsewhere in Europe, and limits the extent of any future industrial action that has already led to more than a thousand cancellations this summer.
A similar so-called Collective Labor Agreement will be put to flight-deck crew in Ireland for approval after a breakthrough in negotiations.
“We welcome this first CLA with our Italian pilots and hope that it will be shortly followed by a similar agreement covering our Irish pilots,” Ryanair Chief People Officer Eddie Wilson said in a separate statement. “We have invited our UK, German and Spanish unions to meet with us in the coming days.”
Ryanair shares jumped
1.6 percent after the announcement, trading at 14.28 euros in Dublin. That pared the stock’s decline this year to 5.1 percent.