The protests of the passengers, the strikes of the pilots, and most recently the controversies over the increase in the price of hand luggage (which was to start from 1 November but which was stopped by the Antitrust, who then also started a procedure since the company did not respect the stop): now corporate troubles are also coming for Ryanair. The Irish low-cost company, which for the past 20 years has been firmly led by the founder and managing director Michael O'Leary and by the president David Bonderman, has ended up in the crosshairs of an influential forum that brings together British pension funds. The LAPFF (Local Authority Pension Fund Forum) across the Channel is a superpower that flags labor rights and environmental issues and badly digests the positions of the airline's board. And who has now decided to come out, also for another reason: he is a shareholder, with a 1% share, of Ryanair; and it has considerable economic power, given that it has a treasury of 260 billion euros.
The LAPFF thus went on the attack, not however directly asking for O'Leary's resignation (it couldn't do that, at least 3% of the capital is needed for any act of no-confidence), but through an action of moral suasion, i.e. unleashing a media war to force the president to resign and the managing director to resign himself to the perspective of a soft "pre-retirement", leaving room for younger managers. An onslaught of tweets and public statements, which seriously begin to corner the president-billionaire Bonderman in the first place. Something has already moved during the last shareholders' meeting: if for O'Leary the consensus for re-election is stable or nearly stable (the total number of votes in his favor dropped by a bit, to 98,5%), for President Bonderman the situation is almost compromised given that today he receives a consensus of 70% against 90% last year.
A very clear message to the two leaders: either we change pace immediately, revolutionizing the image of a company that is not very friendly to workers (and in some cases to passengers themselves), or one of the two (and the first on the list at this point is Bonderman) has to go. "As long-term investors of Ryanair - wrote Ian Greenwood, president of LAPFF, in an email to Michael Cawley, chairman of the "nomination committee" of Ryanair - we believe that the company can continue its growth but that means introducing changes, above all in the face of the prolonged transition we are witnessing, in order to finally reach a more stable employment model and correct industrial relations”. The goal is to take out Bonderman by September 2019 and O'Leary "as soon as possible". An important signal for industrial and union relations, which have greatly damaged Ryanair's image over the years, but which are already changing: in the last period, the Irish company has begun to sign regular contracts more often with pilots and flight attendants .
