Irish airline Ryanair, which often has conflicts with its Belgian staff, announced on Wednesday that it was leaving its base at Brussels-Zaventem airport for good because airport fares were considered too high.
This decision does not question Ryanair’s activity at the Charleroi airport (south), from where the company serves ten times as many destinations.
In a statement, Michael O’Leary, head of the Irish budget airline, noted “Zaventem Airport’s decision to increase prices by 11% for airlines and passengers from April 2023.”
Sixty jobs at risk
Consequence: Ryanair’s base in Zaventem, temporarily closed for the winter season, “will not reopen in the summer of 2023,” it announced.
The company specifies that this closure will not prevent it from providing service to Brussels-Zaventem with planes that are not parked there, operated by personnel based outside of Belgium.
Ryanair evokes the maintenance of 12 destinations, almost exclusively in the Mediterranean basin.
According to the Belgian unions, some sixty jobs are threatened. “There are 44 cabin crew (stewardesses, stewardesses) and about fifteen pilots,” Didier Lebbe, permanent secretary of the CNE Christian union, told AFP.
“Ryanair’s decision has only a limited impact,” reacted the airport operator, Brussels Airport, confirming that 12 of the 16 destinations on the summer offer were maintained.
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The Brussels airport justified the increase in prices in particular by “the sharp increase in energy prices” and the “very high inflation”.
“The airlines have been consulted on this issue and these prices have been set and supervised by an independent regulator,” the company also argued.
The Irish airline’s announcement comes against the backdrop of a standoff with its Belgium-based cabin crew, who have again gone on strike for two weekends in a row over the Christmas season.
The unions accuse Ryanair of not respecting Belgian legislation, including on working time and minimum wage, and of putting “pressure” on employees to get them to go to work at other bases.
Source: BFM TV
