In an ongoing labour dispute, Irish airline Aer Lingus confirmed the cancellation of an additional 80 flights in the latter part of the forthcoming week. This development comes as the anticipation for the probable critical Labour Court verdict to settle the conflict over the pilots’ salary increases persists. The Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa), part of trade union Fórsa, is keeping up the industrial action at Aer Lingus to pursue pay hikes of more than 20%.
Aer Lingus announced on Friday that it would scrap 80 flights from Thursday, July 11th to Sunday in order to preserve as many services as feasible, while pilots keep refusing over time and out-of-hours labour. This new plan swells the tally of disrupted flights by the airline since the start of IALPA’s industrial action last week to 548, consequently affecting around 90,000 travellers.
Aer Lingus is now reaching out to the impacted customers and they will have the chance to switch flights without any extra charges, or demand cash or voucher refunds. Real-time information regarding available options will also be accessible on the ‘Travel Advisory’ section of Aer Lingus’ website, the company confirmed.
This follows a three-hour appearance at the Labour court by the company and IALPA representatives two days prior. A proposal is anticipated from the court to broker a truce with the airline, which had already announced the cancellation of 468 flights leading to next Wednesday.
The judgement from the Labour Court, which isn’t binding, needs to be approved by both parties to resolve the dispute. On any proposal offered, a vote will occur amongst the union members, an action already confirmed by Association head, Capt Mark Tighe.
The Labour Court has resorted to industrial relations law to intercede in this ongoing dispute following the collapse of numerous attempts at reaching a resolution. The pilots initiated a work-to-rule last week and conducted an eight-hour strike on Saturday, with 500 union members protesting at Dublin Airport.
According to the association, the quest for salary increments of over 20% is to cover their members for inflation. They assert that the union softened its stance during discussions and claim that a mere €5 million per annum would suffice to level the pay gap with Aer Lingus.
While the airline asserts it cannot agree to pay hikes beyond the 12.25% granted to cabin and ground staff without a deal on supplementary productivity and flexibility from the pilots, Aer Lingus insists that individual pilots will experience “minimal” repercussions, allowing the airline to operate more efficiently.