Aer Lingus cancels 76 more flights as row returns to Labour Court
Aer Lingus pilots will “stand their ground” if the latest bid to resolve their long-running pay row with the airline fails, their union leader warned on Wednesday.
The airline plans to cancel 76 additional flights from July 8th to 10th as a work to rule by members of the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa) enters it second week.
Aer Lingus and Ialpa began a fourth Labour Court hearing aimed at resolving the dispute on Wednesday afternoon.
Ahead of the talks, Capt Mark Tighe, Ialpa president, warned that pilots would “stand their ground against their employer” if this latest bid to break the deadlock fails.
Pilots are seeking pay rises of more than 20 per cent to compensate them for the inflation of recent years.
Aer Lingus maintains the company cannot offer them more than the 12.25 per cent it agreed with cabin and ground crews without pilots conceding extra productivity and flexibility.
Donal Moriarty, Aer Lingus chief corporate affairs officer, argued that this would have “minimal impact” on individual pilots’ conditions, as he led the airline’s delegation into talks.
“It will simply enable the airline to run more efficiently,” he added.
As with most cancellations since the dispute began, the bulk of those announced on Wednesday are on short-haul business routes to airports in cities including London, Manchester, Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels and Frankfurt with one flight to the US impacted each day.
All told close to 500 flights have now been cancelled since the work-to-rule began a week ago with 120 flights cancelled last Saturday as a result of an all out strike by pilots that lasted for eight hours. An estimated 75,000 passengers have been hit.
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“In order to continue to protect as many services as possible from the continuing and highly disruptive impact of IALPA’s continuing industrial action, Aer Lingus has had to take the step of cancelling 76 additional flights over the course of Monday 8th July to Wednesday 10th July (inclusive),” the company said in a statement.
“Implementing these cancellations is to enable us to protect as many services as possible for as many of our customers as possible. These cancellations will be implemented today, and details will be communicated to impacted customers.”
Customers who are impacted by the fresh wave of cancellations will be given the option to change their flights for free.
They will also be able to claim a refund or voucher.
“Aer Lingus fully understands the anxiety being experienced by customers given the uncertainty caused by IALPA’s industrial action and is giving impacted customers as many options as possible,” the company’s statement concluded.
Both sides held over nine hours of talks on Monday after which it was confirmed that the Labour Court would use powers under industrial relations law to intervene.
Aer Lingus confirmed it had hired aircraft and crew from other operators, a practice known as “wet leasing”, to fly some services while pilots continued industrial action.
The company hired one Boeing 777 to fly from Dublin to Chicago, while it brought in two Airbus A320s to serve European destinations including Greek islands and Malaga, popular with Irish sunseekers, along with the Czech capital Prague.
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