(ANSA) - Milan, December 15 - In a historic turnaround in its relations with staff, Ryanair on Thursday recognised trade unions, prompting all but one union to suspend today's pilot strike.

In a move aimed at averting problems during the Christmas holiday period, the Irish budget airline said it had written to pilots' unions in Ireland, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal. It said it had invited them to talks to legitimise them as representative organisations in all those countries.

"Ryanair will change its long-term policy of not recognising unions so as to avoid any threat of disruption to its customers and flights during Christmas week," the low-cost airline said in a statement.

Founder and CEO Michael O'Leary said "Christmas flights are very important for our clients and we want to remove all concern that they may be subjected to disruptions by the action of pilots next week".

He said "if the best way to reach this objective is to speak to our pilots via a recognised union process, then we are prepared to do so and we have written to these unions today to invite them to talks and asking them to cancel threatened action over the Christmas week". As a consequence of the overture by Rynair, Italian pilots' association ANPAC suspended the Ryanair strike scheduled for today.

ANPAC said it "welcomed the step forward taken" by the Irish airline.

But the FIT-CISL union said it had not received any letter from the airline.

Therefore, it said, it was going ahead with today's strike.

Industry Minister Carlo Calenda said Ryanair's recognition of unions was "the bare minimum" it could do towards improving labour relations.

"It is not a concession. It is the bare minimum, and it is not enough," Calenda said.

