Ryanair pilots demand Stansted pay that doubles airline's offer

An ad hoc pilots group at Ryanair Holdings has demanded double the pay offered by management to its London Stansted crews, who last week voted to reject a peace offering aimed at containing fallout from a flight cancellation debacle. The unofficial European Employee Representative Council made the proposal to pilots two days after Ryanair’s biggest pilot base rejected the existing offer, according to a document seen by Bloomberg on Sunday. The group has asked pilots for feedback and pledged to take industrial action if a new deal can’t be agreed. Ryanair’s London Stansted base voted 60% to 40% on Friday against raises and bonuses of as much as GBP22,000, which would boost basic compensation to GBP74,000, the company said Friday. The group’s demands would see basic pay rise to GBP150,000 for captains across the company, from 64,000 pounds currently. The stand-off between pilots and executives has simmered since the airline was forced to cancel more than 20,000 flights affecting about 700,000 customers due to a mess-up of rosters that left it lacking enough crew to maintain its schedule. The EERC, created after the cancellations last month, is seeking to establish a collective bargaining group across the carrier’s 86 bases.<br/>