A new strike by air crews at the “Rhine Air” company in Belgium will lead to the cancellation of 152 flights over the weekend at Charleroi airport, the head of the airport confirmed to AFP on Friday.
About 400 flight attendants and hostesses working for the low-cost Irish carrier were invited to stop working from December 30 to January 1, which led to the cancellation of more than a hundred flights at this airport, which is the second in Belgium in terms of passenger traffic.
On Saturday and Sunday, 76 flights departing from Charleroi Airport and 76 return flights will be canceled, “affecting about 20,000 passengers,” according to airport chief Philip Verdonk, adding that “RainAir” has informed all concerned passengers.
The Irish company operates 15 aircraft from Belgium and the strike is not expected to affect aircraft in other countries. Thus, part of the Ryanair planes that operate flights to Belgium will continue to operate thanks to the planes stationed abroad.
The head of the CNE union for airline employees, Didier Lippi, said a staff meeting would take place on Saturday morning at Charleroi airport.
Ryanair employees in Belgium have gone on strike several times over the past year. They accuse the company of illegally pressuring employees to work, sometimes at other sites across Europe, particularly in Dublin.
They also accuse Ryanair of not properly declaring its employees to social security and of paying wages sometimes below the legal minimum.
“At the same time they announce that they are going to make an extraordinary profit, and make more money than expected, and for aircrew which is almost nothing in their costs, they are not willing to pay a little money until people get at least the legal minimum,” Libby said.
On Wednesday, “Rain Air” expected an increase in profits after tax deduction for the fiscal year that ends on March 31 to between 1,325 and 1,425 billion euros, compared to one billion to 1.2 billion euros expected before.
Charleroi Airport, from which flights are launched to more than 190 destinations, mostly in the Mediterranean basin, confirms that traffic through it reaches eight million passengers annually. It is the second in Belgium after Brussels-Zaventem.
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