Ryanair announces more deals with unions in Europe

Ryanair on Friday said it has reached agreements with more unions across Europe, as the no-frills Irish airline looks to avoid further strike action threatened by pilots and cabin crew.

But UK pilots union BALPA hit back, saying Ryanair had got ahead of itself, while on Thursday Belgian unions representing cabin crew threatened "several strike days before the end of the year" by Europe-wide employees.

Ryanair's head of human resources Eddie Wilson said in a company statement Friday: "These signed agreements with our pilot unions in Portugal, the UK, Italy and shortly in Spain, demonstrate the considerable progress we're making in concluding union agreements with our people in our major EU markets."