Cabin crew at budget airline Ryanair have gone on strike in Belgium, Spain and Portugal, reflecting a growing trend of industrial action across various sectors in a number of European countries.
The UK has been crippled in recent days by a mass walkout of railway workers, with more pain in the pipeline as workers at London’s Heathrow airport also voted in favor of industrial action during one of the busiest periods of the year. France is also experiencing growing discontent, with strike action planned for Friday by trade union CGT.
Airlines have struggled with staff shortages as the industry experiences difficulty recruiting quickly enough to fill the gaps left in the workforce by Covid-related layoffs. This has strengthened the hand of unions in negotiations for improved pay and working conditions, with those representing workers’ demands confident their employers cannot cope with further disruption to operations.
Ryanair cabin crew unions in Belgium, Spain and Portugal have called a three-day strike starting from today, with staff in France and Italy likely to also commence similar actions shortly. Crews in Spain have an additional strike planned from June 30th to July 2nd.
Workers for the company have criticized working conditions, and allege that the airline is in violation of local labor laws.
“Conditions are terrible,” said Ricardo Penarroias, president of Portugal’s SNPVAC union. “A crew member is not even allowed to take a bottle of water on a flight.”