Ryanair cabin crew are planning to walk out on the airline over working conditions before absconding to a rival, one of the embattled carrier’s flight attendants has claimed.

Contacting Telegraph Travel under condition of anonymity, the member of staff, who has been working for the airline for three years, said: “It is written in our contracts that we are not allowed to be in unions, but colleagues from my base and not only [mine], are planning a strike before moving to Norwegian and easyJet.

“Imagine that the five aircraft of our base will not depart on one day. And we are talking only about five aircraft in my base. It will be a mess.”

Working conditions at the airline have come under scrutiny recently after the carrier was forced to cancel thousands of flights following a “mess up” with its pilots’ holiday roster.

Micheal O'Leary faces the press as Ryanair handles the fallout of its cancellations Credit: Getty

Last week another Ryanair flight attendant made allegations about a number of startling working practises at the airline, including only being paid for “flying time”, charging staff full price for water and sandwiches, and encouraging members to compete against each other for in-flight sales. The airline did not respond to specific details of the article but said that its cabin crew earn up to €40,000 (£35,500) a year and “enjoy great terms and conditions including job security... a legal max of 900 flight hours per annum... [and] great sales commissions”.

Also this week, it emerged that a letter had been circulated among Ryanair pilots encouraging support for an “unofficial” union “to oppose the long-standing strategy of divide and conquer that Ryanair has applied in its dealing with pilots”.

“To overthrow this structure will require immense force of will, stamina and commitment from every pilot,” the letter read.

“It is entirely possible that things will get worse before they get any better. Expect management to fight any change by all means available to them. There will be casualties.

“To paraphrase Churchill: Let us make sure future colleagues look back and say: ‘This was their finest hour’.”

The flight attendant who contacted Telegraph Travel accused Ryanair of being the “North Korea of aviation”.

“The situation is getting worse,” they said. “We work more than 100 hours a month. I said work? No, we are paid for 100 hours a month but we work something like 140-160 since they don't consider the ‘turnarounds’ duty time. We can have six turnarounds a day. Is this safe? I don't think so.”

They added that staff must pay £30 a month rental of their uniforms.

“I have a lot of ex-Ryanair friends working for Norwegian, easyJet and Wizzair. You cannot even compare the conditions,” the flight attendant said.

According to both flight attendants to speak out, Ryanair staff are discussing their options on closed groups on social media.

Asked to comment on the prospect of a walkout, a spokesperson for the airline said: “We don’t comment on rumour or speculation.”

Asked to comment on cabin crew having to rent their uniform and not being paid for turnaround time, the spokesperson said: “Untrue.”

Europe’s largest carrier has had a torrid time since announcing that mishandling of its pilots’ holidays meant it was having to cancel a large swathe of flights up until the end of October. Ryanair then announced the cancellation of 400,000 more bookings as it attempted to “slow growth” and shore up its long-term punctuality.

Responding to the original article on working conditions, Ryanair said: “Ryanair cabin crew earn up to €40,000 p.a. and enjoy great terms and conditions including job security, a recently negotiated five year pay deal with guaranteed pay increases, a five-on, three-off roster (a bank holiday weekend every week), a legal max of 900 flight hours p.a. (just 18 hours per week), great sales commissions which further boosts pay, free training, sick pay and an annual uniform payment of up to €425. This is why we currently have a waiting list of over 3,000 young people who all hope to join Ryanair’s cabin crew team, at a time when other airlines and their unions are negotiating job cuts, pension cuts and pay cuts. We don’t comment on rumour or speculation especially when it originates from competitor airline unions.”