THE IRISH AIRLINE Pilots’ Association has announced two further strike dates for Ryanair pilots, following on from its first day of strikes today.

In a statement this evening, it said that pilots would be striking for two days – Friday 20 July and Tuesday 24 July.

The association, a branch of Fórsa trade union, said in a statement: “The union and management found some common ground in talks yesterday  on the proposal that a joint working group could help the parties agree on a fair and transparent method to govern base transfer arrangements and related matters, but failed to reach agreement on the terms of reference for such a group.

On a number of occasions in recent months, there have been suggestions that third-party facilitation could assist in reaching consensus on issues of disagreement.

It is, therefore, regrettable that Ryanair management has so far rejected the suggestion of third party assistance

In a statement this evening, Ryanair said: “As we said in our memo today, we would encourage our pilots to take up our offer of a working group to resolve these issues, but if they wish to hold another unsuccessful strike again, then so be it. We will contact customers in due course when we receive details.”

Earlier, Ryanair said on Twitter that the strike “has achieved nothing”, and said it hopes that the union would accept its offer of a working group to try to resolve the issues.