Ryanair pilots have announced two new days of intended strike action

The airline has said that if pilots wish to continue with strike action then "so be it."

A number of Ryanair pilots based in Ireland have announced that they intend on staging two further 24-hours strikes later this month. The Irish Airline Pilots' Association (IALPA) branch of FÓRSA has announced that strike action will take place on Friday 20 and Tuesday 24 July. This comes as an ongoing feud between Ryanair staff and the budget airline intensifies. Last week, pilots voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action (99%) following a dispute over management’s approach to transferring pilots between its European and African bases. Strike action was scheduled to take place for a period of 24 hours next week, beginning at 01:00 on Thursday 12 July. 30 out of 290 flights set to depart with the airline out of and into Ireland on Thursday were cancelled as a result. Ryanair released a statement on Tuesday afternoon confirming this, adding that trade union FÓRSA had refused invitations to meet on several occasions to discuss industrial action. "We have tried to avert this disruption, which is unnecessary given Ryanair pilots’ and their union FORSA has received written proposals on seniority, annual leave and base transfers, which are what FORSA claims are the reasons for this strike, yet FORSA has rejected 21 separate invitations to meet Ryanair to negotiate these documents," the statement read. JOE got in contact with Ryanair, who issued a statement regarding threats of further IALPA strikes. “As we said in our memo today, we would encourage our pilots to take up our offer of a working group to resolve these issues, but if they wish to hold another unsuccessful strike again, then so be it. "We will contact customers in due course when we receive details.”