Pilot deal gives Ryanair clear skies for Christmas in Germany

Reuters  |  DUBLIN/BERLIN 

DUBLIN/(Reuters) - has reached an agreement on wages and benefits with the main German pilot union that will ensure there is no repeat of strikes that disrupted flights in the country before last

The VC union, which was responsible for Ryanair's first ever pilot strike a year ago, said the two sides planned to sign a full collective labour agreement (CLA) by next March and no industrial action would be taken before then.

Ryanair, which has faced a series of strikes across this year, has made significant progress in union talks in recent weeks and has said it hopes to come to agreements with unions in all its main markets before the end of March.

Europe's largest agreed a deal with a cabin crew union in last month.

All pilots based in will be subject to contracts under German rather than Irish law, VC said in a statement.

was the last major market where did not have an agreement with pilots.

"While it is not a full CLA (collective labour agreement) yet, this is clear progress by and the VC union, which has been one of the more troublesome unions to date," airlines analyst said in a note.

Ryanair shares were up 0.5 percent at 11.73 euros at 0930 GMT but have lost more than a fifth of their value over the year.

(Reporting by in Bengaluru and Conor Humphries in and Ilona Wissenbach in Berlin; editing by and Keith Weir)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Tue, December 04 2018. 15:20 IST