The Dublin High Court has approved an application by Ryanair to stop a proposed pilot strike on Thursday and Friday.
Justice McDonald told Dublin High Court that he would approve an application for an injunction to prevent around 180 pilots in Ireland undertaking a 48-hour strike action over pay conditions beginning at 12.01am on Thursday.
He said he was restraining the pilots’ union Forsa “from directly or indirectly, organising, directing or endorsing their members to participate in a strike on August 22 or 23 2019”.
The court action taken by the airline against Forsa and a number of named pilots started on Monday morning.
The legal arguments surrounded whether an agreement signed in the summer of 2018 through mediation at the Workplace Relations Commission was an “over-arching agreement” that covered pay conditions as well as seniority and annual leave.
Ryanair argued that the 2018 agreement covered issues surrounding salary, However, Forsa said that the previous agreement only covered the issues that arose at that particular time.
Martin Hayden SC, appearing for the airline, told the court in Dublin he found it “extraordinary” that the union claimed the 2018 agreement signed by both parties does not cover pay, and the union had shown “complete indifference” to resolving the dispute which will affect “hundreds of customers”.
Forsa told the court that Ryanair has been “curt and dismissive” of a 30-page proposal it submitted to the company on pay and conditions, and at one point stated that the submission had “no basis in reality”.
Their affidavit stated that Ryanair has no basis to apply for an injunction to stop strike action, as the previous agreement signed by both parties in summer 2018 was “not a full collective agreement”.
Meanwhile, the British Airline Pilots’ Association (Balpa) said on Monday that because Ryanair has “wasted time with unnecessary court action”, their chance to resolve the dispute involving their pilots has been lost.
Ryanair began seeking a High Court injunction on Wednesday to stop strike action by their UK pilots.