Airline organisation Ryanair has reported a 67% mean gender pay gap for fixed hourly pay as at April 2017.
The organisation has reported its gender pay gap data in line with the government’s gender pay gap reporting regulations and ahead of the private sector submission deadline of 4 April 2018.
The gender pay gap reporting regulations require organisations with 250 or more employees to publish the difference between both the mean and median hourly rate of pay for male and female full-time employees; the difference between both the mean bonus pay and median bonus pay for male and female employees; the proportions of male and female employees who were awarded bonus pay; and the proportions of male and female full-time employees in the lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands.
Ryanair’s median gender pay gap for fixed hourly pay as at April 2017 is 71.8%.
Its mean gender pay gap for bonuses paid in the year to April 2017 is 20.6%, and the median gender pay gap for bonus payments is 3.4%. Over this period, 82.8% of female employees received a bonus payment compared to 27.8% of male employees.
Less than one in five (3%) of employees in the highest pay quartile at Ryanair are female, compared to 16% in the second quartile, 76% in the third quartile and 57% in the lowest pay quartile.
Ryanair attributes its gender pay gap firstly to the fact that its workforce consists of more male pilots than female pilots; of the organisation’s 554 UK-based pilots, just eight are female compared to 546 male pilots. This compares to 405 women who work as part of Ryanair’s UK cabin crew team, which consists of 586 employees in total, and 17 women who work in non-crew roles, out of a total of 42 non-crew UK employees. Ryanair’s analysis shows that this also impacts its bonus gender pay gap as employees that work as pilots can attract a higher bonus than those who work as cabin crew.
Secondly, Ryanair believes its gender pay gap is influenced by the fact that the majority of its management and administration roles are based in Ireland, so most of its UK-based staff work as either pilots or cabin crew.
Darrell Hughes, director of HR strategy and operations at Ryanair, said in the report: “Ryanair is an equal pay employer and we are proud of the thousands of professional men and women who work hard to deliver great service and Europe’s lowest fares to our customers. Like all airlines, our gender pay in the UK is materially affected by the relatively low numbers of female pilots in the aviation industry. In Ryanair’s case our management and administration are based largely in Ireland, so the vast majority of our UK-based [employees] are pilots or cabin crew.
“In recent years, the number of female pilots applying to Ryanair has increased and we are committed to developing this welcome trend. It is a feature of the aviation industry that more males than females choose to enter the pilot profession.
“All of our UK pilots and cabin crew are covered by negotiated collective agreements, under which our female pilots and cabin crew are paid the same basic salary and the same variable pay rates as their male colleagues.”