Ryanair has offered to pay bonuses of up to €12,000 to pilots who agree to give up annual leave entitlements to plug gaps in the schedule which have triggered flight cancellations over the next six weeks.
However, the pilots would not receive the bonuses until October of next year.
The offer comes in a memo to pilots from Ryanair's chief operations officer Michael Hickey.
In the memo, Michael Hickey thanked those pilots who have already offered to operate during their month off.
But he said that despite their contribution, the impact of allocating so much leave in four week blocks in September and October (together with air traffic control and weather delays) has resulted in up to 50 flights a day being cancelled for the next six weeks.
He says that to avoid further cancellations, Ryanair is requesting between one and two blocks of five days from every pilot who has already been assigned their month off.
The airline is also asking those with an October month off to confirm their preferred availability by this Wednesday.
He says that tomorrow Ryanair will launch a new app to show individual duty patterns, including days off, and will allow staff to select the period they wish to work, and the preferred base from which to work.
Mr Hickey writes that in recognition of the impact on pilots of flying additional days, all current pilots (employees and contractors) who remain operating Ryanair aircraft until 31 October 2018 will receive a once-off €12,000 gross bonus for captains, or €6,000 for first officers - but not until November 2018.
The bonuses would be conditional on completing more than 800 flight hours for Ryanair in the 12 months up to 31 October 2018.
Pilots must also undertake to complete at least ten working days off between 15 September of this year and 31 October 2018 - including one full block of five days during their month off.
Pilots who work a day off will continue to be paid the relevant working day off payment, "sector" pay for hours worked, and their annual leave payments, if working a day that was previously allocated as annual leave.
Contractor pilots will be paid at their current applicable agency rates.
However, the bonus is not applicable to pilots who have resigned and are working their notice prior to 31 October 2018, nor will it be offered to pilots with more than four unauthorised absences during this period.
In addition, from October 1, all Ryanair-employed pilots will receive an increase in their out of base overnight payments from €28 to €75 of tax per overnight, with further increases in out of base allowances.
The scale of the bonus payments reflects the urgency of the annual leave crisis facing Ryanair at present.
The structuring of the bonus payments - which are deferred for a year - would act as a disincentive to pilots to defect to other airlines - which some believe has contributed to the current problems.
Ryanair published details of the flight cancellations yesterday.
Six Ryanair flights to and from Dublin today have been cancelled as part of the airline's plan to cancel 50 flights a day for the next six weeks.
Today's cancellations are for flights to and from Berlin, Glasgow and Krakow.
Ryanair's chief executive Michael O'Leary yesterday admitted to a "cock up" over pilot shortages that led him to cancel flights and disrupt the plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Ryanair said it was preparing for up to €20m in compensation claims and €5m in lost fares as a result of the cancellations, although analysts estimated the total cost could be higher.
"This is clearly a mess up, I take responsibility for the mess up and I have to clear it up. I say sorry on behalf of Ryanair. I say we want to put our hands up, which is what we do when we make a mess," O'Leary told a news conference.
Mr O'Leary promised the problem would not recur in 2018 but said there would be a reputational hit from cancelling flights to and from destinations including Barcelona, Brussels, Lisbon, Madrid, Milan and Rome, which would not help future bookings.
