Ryanair facing first ever strike but it'll take more than that to move Michael O'Leary

The low cost airline says it expects a walkout planned for December 15 to be cancelled

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary (PA)

Did you think Ryanair’s difficulties with pilots were over? Think again.

In the wake of the cancellation of thousands of flights due to the lack of available people to fly them, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary was positively gushing about the people who fly his planes.

Derogatory comments made about at the company’s AGM were, he said, aimed at those working for competitor airlines. Ryanair’s pilots, by contrast, were superstar contributors to a financial powerhouse!

There was even the offer of some cash and improved working conditions.

If that smoothed any ruffled feathers it didn’t last for long.

The budget airline is now facing its first ever strike as pilots push for union recognition. Italy is the focus, but with the formation of works councils in various countries, including Ireland, if a walkout planned for December 15 is successful, others may follow.

Ryanair has responded with typical Ryanair insouciance, stating that the two labour groups involved in the proposed action represent employees at Alitalia and have no role at the Irish airline.

Spokesman Robin Kiely has said that the company expects the action to be cancelled.

We’ll see.

Ryanair took some flak from regulators with its handling of the cancellation crisis earlier this year but the affair did almost nothing to dent the carrier’s numbers, or the esteem in which Mr O’Leary is held by his investors.

Behind the bluster the airline is still vulnerable. With pilots in short supply, and competitors after them, those at Ryanair have clearly scented an opportunity to push for more.

It is perfectly possible to run a profitable low cost airline, recognise unions and entertain collective bargaining, which is what they want. Plenty do that.

But antipathy towards them runs through Ryanair’s DNA. So the pilots are going to have to steel themselves for a bare knuckle brawl, and one that could take a long time to resolve. It’s the sort of thing that the pugnacious Mr O’Leary thoroughly enjoys and the warnings of consequences for those who participate have already been issued.

His fanboys in the investment community, many of whom hold regrettably similar views of unions to the ones he holds, might care to ponder whether all this really bodes well for the long term health of their company.

The cancelled flights fiasco might not have had much of an impact on their returns, but a prolonged period of industrial strife that leads to more cancellations - or just continued difficulties in attracting people to work at the company - could change that.

The pilots seem minded to roll the dice, and why not? They’re not likely to get another similar opportunity. But they'll probably need to demonstrate that they have the clout to hit those returns because that's likely the only thing that will sway the investors, and thus Mr O'Leary.