Ryanair's more than 60 Dublin-based pilots will meet with the airline's senior management today and tomorrow as part of its efforts to end the bitter stand-off over their training for its new fleet of aircraft.
The pilots have been summoned to attend what Ryanair calls "townhall" meetings at its boardroom at the airline's headquarters at Dublin airport.
At these meetings Ryanair will formally offer its terms for their training to fly its new Boeing 737-800 series aircraft and they will be asked to accept them by the end of the next week.
Ryanair chief executive, Michael O'Leary said if they rejected this offer they would receive a fresh offer in September that would not guarantee that they would be based in Dublin.
Mr O'Leary has attended these meetings in the past which are held at regular intervals with the pilots. Some Ryanair pilots have claimed that some townhall meetings have been bruising affairs during which the chief executive has used foul and abusive language.
A number of pilots who attended a townhall meeting on January 28th, 2005, made notes of the proceedings which have been seen by The Irish Times.
According to their account approximately 10 minutes into the meeting Mr O'Leary entered the room and sat facing the pilot body. He singled out a junior pilot and shouted "what are you f**king smirking at? This is no f**king laughing matter".
The notes also claim that Mr O'Leary stated that Ryanair would never deal with unions "only over my dead body and never on my f***king watch". The notes also stated that given the number of pilots who had been made redundant in the airline industry that he would be mad if he didn't take commercial advantage of the lower rates he could pay them.
"Mr O'Leary stated that if we didn't like it we could go on f***ing strike and march around the airport roundabouts for as long as we liked for all the good it would do us" according to the notes. "Bring it on and see what happens" he is quoted as saying.
When asked why Ryanair had decided on tying the pilots into a five year bond instead of a two year bond in relation to their training contracts Mr O'Leary reportedly said he though it was a "good round number" and he felt like it.
Mr O'Leary told The Irish Times that he would not comment on third party contemporaneous notes and said Ryanair had a transcript of this meeting. He said that Ryanair's policy in relation to deal directly with its employees was well known. He also said that Ryanair had no fear of a strike now or ever.
Today the airline will request that the pilots, who have lodged more than 200 victimisation claims against Ryanair with the Labour Relations Commission, withdraw these claims as part of their training agreement.
Some of the pilots have made more than one such complaint and if all of the claims were to be upheld Ryanair could potentially have to pay total compensation of up to €52 million.
The victimisation claims stem from correspondence and actions taken by Ryanair management on the issue of the conversion training for its Dublin-based pilots.
