International

The SP is urging Sharon Dijksma, Secretary of State for Infrastructure and the Environment, to intervene directly at Ryanair. The low-cost airline scandalously exploits its pilots and cabin personnel. According to SP Member of Parliament Eric Smaling, “a price war is being fought on the backs of the cabin staff. People are getting up to their ears in debt and in some cases working themselves until they are literally ill. We should not be cooperating in this.”

“The most expensive seat in a Ryanair plane is generally that of the pilot,” says Smaling. “In effect they have to pay the company tens of thousands of euros and the wages are so poor that you can’t earn it back, or can barely do so. The cabin personnel are also squeezed. They sometimes have to sit around an airport all day long without knowing whether there will be any work for them, and all for about €30, while the top management are rolling in money.”

In Smaling’s view intervention by the government is now unavoidable. “We should not be accepting exploitation in the Netherlands,” he says. “We wants Dutch airports to be open only to airlines which don’t make their money on the backs of their personnel. The inspectorate must also put a stop to the bogus ‘self-employment’ into which Ryanair pilots are forced.”