Despite a rapid recovery from the growing passenger demand, a global industry-wide issue of flight and cabin crew shortages has led to several carriers trimming down their previously-enhanced summer flight schedules. Nevertheless, the chief executive of Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, remains confident that the low-cost carrier will remain unaffected by these problems.

A minor inconvenience

According to O'Leary, Ryanair will perform particularly decently for the summer season, contrary to its rivals. However, the low-cost carrier is currently experiencing strikes from its cabin crew in Belgium, Spain, and Portugal, resulting in dozens of canceled flights. With additional industrial walk-outs over salary woes expected in France and Italy, Ryanair remains unfazed by any staffing issues.

If anything, O'Leary dismisses the idea of the salary woes and reaffirms that every employee under the airline can pay for their rental expenses, and maintains that every employee is paid above the minimum wage. Still, industrial walk-outs pose a significant disruption to a seemingly smooth summer season. But O'Leary still seethes no pessimism and predicts that any disruption caused by the strikes will only affect less than 1% of Ryanair's European operations.

Ryanair, Ghost Flights, COVID-19
O'Leary maintains that the Ryanair cabin crew on strike are currently earning between £24,000 and £45,000 ($25,346.88 to $47,525.40). Photo: Tom Boon | Simple Flying

No shortage in sight

And the reason for such optimism is that Ryanair has been on a hiring and training spree since last year, which was relatively earlier than most of its rivals. O'Leary further highlighted:

"The other thing we did sensibly during Covid is that we didn’t fire thousands of cabin crew or pilots or engineers."

Even when passenger demand remained uncertain and fluctuating for most of last year, the Dublin-based low-cost carrier ensured that its flight and cabin crew maintained their flying hours to minimize the risk of redundancy. If made redundant, a pilot who doesn't fly once a month risks losing the license and must be back in a simulator for three months to earn it back. As for cabin crew, they would have to undergo an eight-week training course if flying hours are not maintained.

O'Leary went on to mention:

"We made sure, even if we had flights with no passengers, we sent up pilots and cabin crew. We sent everybody flying at least once a month. We didn’t dump them all at home and say, ‘we’ll call you in 18 months when this is all over’.”

Ryanair Boeing 737 taking-off from Dublin Airport
As Dublin Airport's largest airline, Ryanair contends that it has a vested interest in anything that impacts operations at Ireland's busiest airport. Photo: Getty Images

Passengers' preferred choice

Also seemingly in Ryanair's favor is that economies across Europe have been plagued by the edging possibility of a recession, causing the cost of living and doing business to soar through the roof. With its low-cost business model, O'Leary believes that Ryanair will sail smoothly through this storm as the airline will ultimately be passengers' preferred choice as opposed to full-service carrier rivals.

Referring to a generation of people who grew up with low-cost airfares, O'Leary is confident that there will be an unbreakable and definite future for low-cost air travel within Europe, allowing for Ryanair to do as well as he foresees. He states:

"We’ve never been recession-proof, but generally, people trade down to the lowest-cost provider in recessions. If you look at the companies that do better in a recession, it is the Lidls, Aldis, and Ikeas, and we are the Lidl, Aldi, and Ikea of the travel industry. We have lower costs and lower fares than any other airline, and we will do spectacularly well in a recession."

Thomas-Boon-Ryanair-8
Ryanair had reported a narrower loss for the 12 months through March, targeting reasonable profitability this fiscal year. Photo: Tom Boon | Simple Flying

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Bottom line

With all the airport chaos happening in Europe and the US, and when paired with the airline chaos worldwide due to flight cancellations and delays and the industrial actions currently taking place, it seems relatively doubting that Ryanair will remain entirely unaffected. Hopefully, the airline's low-cost business model is truly what pulls it through what appears to be a tough summer ahead.

Source: The Independent