Ryanair's Spanish cabin crew unions call off Tuesday strike

[January 08, 2019]   DUBLIN (Reuters) - Unions representing Ryanair <RYA.I> cabin crew in Spain called off plans to strike on Tuesday to allow time for further talks, the SITCPLA and USO unions said in a statement.

The unions, which are due to meet representatives of Ryanair on Tuesday morning, have not canceled plans for one-day strikes on Thursday and Sunday, the SITCPLA union said in a Twitter post.

"We have suspended the strike on Jan 8, 2019, in order to continue negotiations," the two unions said in a statement.

Ryanair suffered a number of strikes last year by pilots and cabin crew, forcing it to cancel hundreds of flights, after the airline recognized unions for the first time in 2017.

But it got through Christmas without any industrial action.

According to the strike plans agreed with the Spanish labor authorities, cabin crew union members would operate all flights between Spanish islands and 50 percent of flights between Spanish islands and the Spanish mainland on the strike days.

But they will only operate 25 percent of flights to and from Spain over 500 km.

Ryanair last week said it did not expect customers would be disrupted by the action but a spokesman for the SITCPLA union said he did not think disruption to flights could be avoided if cabin crew go through with their strike action.

(This story has been refiled to correct to show unions to meet Ryanair on Tuesday (not Wednesday), paragraph two.)

(Reporting by Conor Humphries; editing by Jason Neely)

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