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Ryanair has been heavily criticised for taking advantage of the current problems in the aviation industry and making what some have described as “thinly veiled threats” to its 1700 pilots.

With the recent collapses of airlines such as Zoom, Futura and the giant XL, Ryanair may be forgiven for thinking that they have the upper hand but pilots are furious over a memo sent to them recently. The leaked memo said that the airline had imposed a recruitment freeze after having been swamped with applications from pilots who have recently found themselves without a job and from those who are afraid that their current employers are set to go bust, and the memo asks for volunteers to take unpaid leave over the winter.

According to the memo, if insufficient numbers are willing to put themselves forward by the end of the month, then the airline will allocate unpaid leave to some of the pilots based at Stansted and Dublin starting from November. The strike at Boeing has also been blamed by the airline for delays in the delivery of aircraft resulting in fewer pilots being required.

In July, Ryanair boss, Michael O’Leary, announced that net profits for the first three months of 2008 had dropped by 85% but he was in bullish mood and expressed his confidence that the airline would not only survive the credit crunch but that he would continue to cut fares. Success would come, he said, not only by reducing fares but by cutting winter flights and profiting from the demise of his competitors.