The airline said Saturday it was prepared to meet representatives from Impact, to which the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (IALPA) is affiliated, on Tuesday in a bid to avert the strike. Friday’s announcement led to Italian pilots’ union Anpac and Portuguese union SPAC calling off strike action due to take place next week. Next week’s industrial action planned for Ireland was backed by 94 percent of pilots directly employed by Ryanair in the eurozone member. Ryanair, Europe’s second-largest airline by passenger numbers, has been forced to cancel 20,000 flights through to March because of pilot scheduling problems stretching back to September. Despite the difficulties, Ryanair still expects to deliver annual profit after tax of 1.40 billion-1.45 billion euros ($1.65 billion-1.71 billion).

Source: New Strait Times December 17, 2017 21:11 UTC