Already serving Budapest Airport from Dublin, the largest gateway to Hungary has announced that Europe’s leading low-cost airline, Ryanair, is to commence flights to another Irish destination from April 2019. The carrier will introduce a twice-weekly service to Cork, Ireland’s second largest city, using its fleet of 189-seat 737-800s.
Ryanair is presently Budapest’s second largest airline customer, flying to 31 destinations from the Hungarian capital this summer, offering 145 weekly departures. Along with the announcement of flights to Cork for 2019, the carrier has already confirmed it will launch flights from Budapest to Amman in Jordan and Marseille in Southern France this coming winter season.
“It is great to see that Ryanair has announced further expansion from next summer with this service to Cork,” comments Balazs Bogats, Head of Airline Development, Budapest Airport. “Situated at the southern tip of Ireland, Cork is a gateway to those wanting to explore the Wild Atlantic Way and the world-famous Blarney Castle, while the city itself is great for business, with technical giants including Apple who have their European headquarters in the region.” Bogats adds: “This service will be ideal for those wanting to travel for business, or to discover the many pleasures of Cork. We are sure this route will be popular for inbound traffic too.”
Over 235,000 passengers travelled between Budapest and the Irish capital of Dublin last year, with passenger numbers during the first half of this year showing that the market is just as popular as it was in 2017. As the new route is expected to add a further 21,000 seats to the Budapest market next summer, the announcement of flights to Cork clearly shows the popularity of the Irish market.
Ryanair reaches agreement with Italian unions on outline terms of a Collective Labour Agreement
Ryanair confirmed that it met in Rome on September 13th with the 3 main cabin crew unions FIT CISL, ANPAC, and ANPAV, and a set of agreed principles were signed, which will form the basis of a comprehensive Collective Labour Agreement (CLA) to cover Ryanair’s Italian based cabin crew from 1 Oct 2018. The parties agreed that they are “now in the final stages of concluding final terms and conditions of a CLA”, which will:
- Run for 3 years from Fri 1 Oct 2018 to 31 Dec 2021
- Be governed by Italian law and the Italian Courts
- Allow Italian cabin crew transition to local contracts over an agreed period
- Deliver increased pay under a new pay structure, which will see crews benefit from increased tax free allowances (similar to other Italian airlines)
- Introduce an Italian Pension Scheme as part of the overall package
Ryanair’s Chief People Officer Eddie Wilson said: “We welcome this agreement with the 3 Italian cabin crew unions on the terms of a Collective Labour Agreement (CLA), which will cover all of our Italian based cabin crew, and will start from next month. This agreement follows recent cabin crew agreements in Ireland with FORSA and in the UK with UNITE.
We expect to sign this first CLA for our Italian cabin crew before the end of Sept, which will lead to significant pay improvements and other benefits for our Italian based cabin crew. This agreement is a further sign of the significant progress Ryanair is making in reaching agreements with our people and their unions in different EU countries, and disproves false claims made by smaller unions not involved in these negotiations, and who are threatening strikes later this winter, which will either not take place or be unsuccessful.”