In Lithuania, the closure of the Kaunas base will cost Ryanair dearly. A court ruled that the workers had to be paid back wages of around 600.000 euros. The fact that the Polish Buzz, which also belongs to the group of companies, seamlessly took over the base played an important role.

Ryanair justified the closure with the effects of the corona pandemic. The employees were informed of the transfer to London Stansted Airport, but according to the court this was not provided for in the employment contracts. After the lion's share of the employees did not show up at the "new place of work", the low-cost airline announced redundancies in June 2020.

Around the same time, the Kaunas base was handed over to Buzz. This circumstance was decisive for the court to decide in favor of the employer. The Lithuanian court agrees with the former Ryanair workers and orders the airline to pay €600.000 in compensation. The main claim for the dismissal was the average wage for the period from the date of dismissal to the execution of the sentence, but not more than one year.

The court found that the transfer to London Stansted Airport was unlawful. This was not provided for in the employment contracts, nor did Ryanair take the employees' personal circumstances into account. The court also recognized that the Irish low-cost airline required employees to live within a maximum of one hour of Kaunas Airport. At the same time, the airline transferred part of its operations at Kaunas Airport to a company belonging to the same group. However, the case showed that the workers had every opportunity to work for Ryanair's Polish subsidiary, which had taken over the Irish company's Kaunas airport operations.

Ryanair, as an employer, has the opportunity to appeal against the judgment of the Kaunas District Court. The decision is not yet final. Nevertheless, one can deduce from this first-instance judgment that, at least in Lithuania, the closure of Ryanair bases and the simultaneous reopening by sister companies cannot be waved through. Should the verdict become final, this could have an impact on the previous strategy of the low coster. In the course of the corona pandemic, some bases were switched to the sister company Buzz. An example of this is Bratislava.