Only flights departing from Charleroi (BSCA) and operated by Belgian-based cabin crew will be affected. This includes flights to Tenerife, Dublin, Malaga, Lisbon and Marrakech.
The strike will affect the 15 planes Ryanair bases in Belgium, CNE permanent secretary Didier Lebbe told AFP, predicting that it would halve the number of flights the airline runs into and out of the country.
The announced strike adds to promised travel chaos in Britain and France, where rail workers stopped work on Friday and over this Christmas weekend to demand higher wages to offset high inflation.
British Border Force officers manning passport booths went on strike for the rest of the year, except December 27, including up to and including New Year’s Eve.
Flights operated by foreign personnel will fly normally. Ryanair has confirmed that those departing on December 30, 31 or January 1 were informed by December 28 whether their flight would be maintained or not.
Those scheduled to depart on January 7 or 8 were informed of their flight status on December 23.
The crew announced their strike already a few days ago.
The Belgian-based Ryanair crew will be on strike on December 30 and 31, as well as on January 1, 7 and 8.
The unions accused Ryanair of illegally pressuring staff in Belgium to work from time to time in other bases across Europe, particularly in Dublin, where the airline suffers employee shortages.
They also allege Ryanair is not properly declaring salaries to Belgian social security authorities and was sometimes paying wages under the national legal minimum.
