Ryanair ordered to pay 115,000 euros to Spanish cabin crew member fired during strikes
The airline will also have to rehire the staff member who was sacked in 2019 from its Malaga base
It’s certainly been a trying week for Ryanair and a pretty expensive one too as the budget airline has been ordered to pay more than 115,000 euros in compensation for unfairly sacking a cabin crew member for going on strike four years ago.
A Malaga court upheld the employee’s claim that the airline violated his fundamental rights when he refused to comply with a change of flight schedules back in 2019. At the time, Ryanair fired the flight attendant for allegedly “failing to comply with the minimum services.”
Celebrating the ruling on Friday September 22, the USO union said the case “that reveals, once again, the Irish company’s permanent determination to prevent workers’ right to strike in Spain and curtail their labour rights.”
At the beginning of December the airline was again dragged through the courts by the unions and found guilty of several workers’ rights violations during the industrial action launched by cabin crew staff across Spain last summer.
In the most recent court case, it was revealed that the employee, who had been with the company for 12 years, turned up for work as planned, where he was scheduled on two flights as part of the minimum services agreement. However, once he arrived, he discovered Ryanair had changed his roster and expected him to work on two completely different flights.
He objected to this last-minute change to his rota and was consequently sacked for this “serious and culpable breach.”
The judge ordered the airline to reinstate the crew member and to pay him the salary he has missed out on since being fired in December 2019, which amounts to more than 95,000 euros. Ryanair will also pay compensation of 20,000 euros for moral damages.
Earlier this week, Spain’s Organisation of Consumer and Users (OCU) threatened to lodge a formal complaint against the budget airline if it doesn’t address its dodgy check-in practices.
Image: Archive
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