CAPA strikes list: Ryanair sparks spike Europe strike news

Ryanair faces the threat of coordinated strikes by cabin crew in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Belgium. The LCC officially recognised unions for the first time in Dec-2017 after crew rostering problems and Ryanair's need to win employee support to resolve them gave the upper hand to labour. It managed to avert strikes at the time and has held talks with several unions in different countries across its network to reach new collective agreements.

Cabin crew industrial action will add to Ryanair's labour relations challenges, since the airline's Irish pilots have announced a strike for 12-July-2018. Ryanair's strike worries come after damaging pilot strikes at Air France earlier this year, which led to the resignation of Air France-KLM CEO Jean-Marc Janaillac.

CAPA has tracked the number of articles on its website that mention the word 'strike'. This metric has broadly followed the airline profit cycle in the past - not surprising, since labour is typically more demanding when the profit cycle is at its peak. However, a surge in the number of strike-related articles in 1H2018 is running ahead of the cycle.