Could 2017 get any worse for Ryanair? In September the low-cost airline was forced to cancel 40 to 50 flights a day as a miscalculation of rosters and pilots’ holidays stranded tens of thousands of passengers across Europe. This month the company is embroiled in official strike action — and has even been forced to recognize a union for the first time.

These crises are not “random misfortunes,” as the International Transport Workers’ Federation noted. They are connected by Ryanair’s “aggressive and cost-cutting business model.” The mismanagement of pilots’ rosters followed a longstanding refusal to deal with its workers collectively — a problem compounded when it responded not by entering negotiations but with a take-it-or-leave-it offer of bonuses to pilots willing to waive days off. It was a transparent effort to break solidarity and dissuade unionization and, to make matters worse, the offer was time limited.

In October, Ryanair Captain Imelda Comer penned a letter to her fellow pilots. “When the company offers nothing except money,” she said, “they try to break our will to negotiate collectively.” With major bases, such as Stansted, rejecting Ryanair’s offer, Comer implored O’Leary to engage with the recently established European Employee Representation Committee (EERC). Comer herself was in the process of leaving the airline — a fact which made speaking out in the intimidating atmosphere less costly — but her role as a conduit for her fellow pilots’ collective demands was important and symbolic.