Easter flyers face uncertainty as Ryanair and union dig their heels in

With a union representing Ryanair cabin crew in Portugal having earlier indicated that it intends to hold three one-day strikes at around Easter, the scene is set for another showdown between airline management and crews.

In a letter to Angela Kirk, Fórsa's national secretary, Ryanair's chief people officer Eddie Wilson, has said that the union's objections to proposed pilot pay increases "are absurd". Ryanair argued that almost 80pc of pilots in Ireland have accepted the airline's pay offer.

"Your claim that this pay increase 'contained provisions which entirely conflicted with union recognition' is false, when as you well know, we struck out these clauses," Mr Wilson told Ms Kirk in the letter, seen by the Irish Independent.

Mr Wilson also said that Ryanair will continue to refuse to accept any letter from Fórsa that also bears the name of the Irish Airline Pilots' Association (IALPA), a union under the Fórsa auspices, which also represents Aer Lingus pilots.

"Until you have established its independence from Aer Lingus pilots, we won't accept correspondence from IALPA, which is run by Aer Lingus pilots. This is your problem to solve, not ours," wrote Mr Wilson.

The Ryanair executive said he again extended an invitation to Ms Kirk and the Fórsa negotiating team to meet at the airline's headquarters. The union has previously said it wants to meet at a neutral venue.

"Fórsa's inaction on our recognition agreement is surprising to both Ryanair and our pilots," Mr Wilson said in the letter.

But Fórsa has rounded on the airline. A Fórsa spokesman said that the union indicated in a letter to Mr Wilson on February 23 that Fórsa would table a modified "less complex" proposed agreement than had already been put forward to Ryanair.

"Ryanair management is wrong to assume that recognising a union simply means drawing up its own 'agreements' and instructing the union to sign them," said the Fórsa spokesman.

"Mr Wilson's repeated references, in his letter, to 'our [management's] recognition agreement' underlines this misconception on management's part. Rather, we are in the process of trying to negotiate a recognition agreement that can be agreed by both parties," he added.

Fórsa has previously told Ryanair that it would not put a proposed pilot pay package to a ballot after its members deemed it would be "unacceptable" to do so with the pay proposal in its current form.

Ryanair announced before Christmas that it would recognise unions across Europe following a pilot rostering debacle.

This week, an unofficial European Ryanair pilot representative body, the EERC, called on the airline's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, to resign. Ryanair insisted the EERC has "no legal standing or validity".