The employees of the Ryanair base in Vienna are facing a sometimes frosty winter, because the Irish low-cost airline is pushing the Boeing 737 staff stationed in Austria on unpaid vacations. Afterwards, many could find a part-time job instead of a full-time job.

Ryanair currently has three Boeing 737-800 planes at Vienna Airport and has cut salaries by up to 20 percent after the start of the corona pandemic. Similar to the sister company Lauda, ​​there was only a short time frame in which approval had to be given by email. Most of the Ryanair pilots and flight attendants stationed in Austria are employed by the temporary employment agencies Workforce and Crewlink. The latter also provides staff for Lauda.

Since opening the Boeing 737 base in Vienna, Ryanair has been able to exert pressure on the A320-flying sister Lauda. Again and again the employees were told that the Boeing 737-800 not only has more seats, but that Ryanair could produce cheaper and more efficiently. Again and again the Lauda management threatened that if the desired savings in personnel were not achieved, then Ryanair would take over and all Lauda jobs would be lost.

The fact that Ryanair is now taking its three Boeing 737-800s, which are stationed in Vienna, out of planning for around two months, wants to send the staff on unpaid vacations during this period and then intends to initially employ them part-time, comes as a bit of a surprise. The Viennese Lauda Europe workforce expected that the Ryanair base will fly, but that savings will be made with the sister company. However, it should also be mentioned that Lauda boss David O'Brien also offered the Austrian flight attendants unpaid vacations in a circular. The difference, however, is that, according to those affected, there are hardly any alternatives at the Ryanair base in Vienna. Ending the employment relationship would be an option, but almost everyone wants to avoid it due to the current situation on the labor market.

Short-time work would actually be the optimal solution for both Lauda and Ryanair employees. In the spring, Laudamotion organized a veritable soap opera to obtain it, only to end it after just a few weeks out of frustration that the social partners had not signed a pre-printed text. The closure of the Laudamotion and the associated commissioning of the Maltese successor Lauda Europe was already a done deal. Only the staff was only informed about it in summer 2020. Ryanair ignored the explicit question regarding short-time work for the Vienna base in a request. It was not answered with “no comment”, but simply remained unanswered.

Otherwise, the company is not talkative about the unpaid vacations that Boeing 737 staff are forced to take. The Irish lowcoster only made the following statement: “The Ryanair winter flight plan for Vienna is currently still being examined. No final decisions have been made yet. " Probably a little short-term or late, because the winter flight schedule period 2020/21 starts already next week. In the reservation system, all flights that are operated ex Vienna are currently marked as “operated by Lauda Europe” and that for at least two months. Those routes that were previously served from other stations continue to contain Boeing 737-800s as aircraft. The Warsaw / Modlin-Vienna route is an exception: this was previously served by the Polish Buzz. Now Lauda Europe is used, with the route being offered twice a week instead of once a week - as planned for a short time.

At Lauda, ​​the workforce is closely monitoring developments at the sister company Ryanair DAC, on whose behalf the company is formally flying. One is on the one hand surprised that it affected their colleagues and not the Lauda crews, but the pilots and flight attendants fear that tough measures could also follow in the Airbus division of the group. These are primarily due to the currently extremely weak demand due to the corona pandemic. New record numbers of infected people and complicated quarantine and entry regulations are having a detrimental effect on the entire industry. While many governments in Europe are threatening a second lockdown, Ryanair's home state, Ireland, will take this step from Wednesday for an initial six weeks.