Flight chaos looms as further strikes threatened

AER LINGUS passengers looked almost certain last night to be grounded for more than the 48-hour strike by pilots next week as both company and unions refused to back down.

Aer Lingus said last night it is continuing to scour the world for aircraft and crews, and is not ruling out borrowing them, even from Ryanair. It is hoping to announce modest progress in that search today but insisted that given the current holiday season, there will be very few planes available.

As that search continues, the two days of action, grounding up to 50,000 passengers next Tuesday and Wednesday, remains almost a certainty. According to the IMPACT trade union and the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association, it will only be the start if the airline does honour collective agreements and implement the same terms and conditions for pilots at the new Belfast base as are currently enjoyed by pilots in the rest of Ireland.

“We are available to discuss this with the airline, we believe there should be discussions and there should be agreement,” said Michael Landers of IMPACT. “If there are no discussions there will be further action after next Wednesday.”

However, Aer Lingus is only willing to enter talks with the unions if they in turn accept key Labour Court and Flynn Report recommendations backing the airline’s call to be allowed to open up new bases outside the Republic of Ireland with local terms and conditions for any workers in those bases.

The starting pay-scale for captains in Belfast will be equivalent of €113,000 which, the company said, is on a par with the pay level for the pilots in the rest of the country. However, the unions say the pay scales will be inferior, the staff will not have the same pension entitlements and will have different working conditions.

The company confirms the working conditions will be different but only because those currently in place in the rest of the Aer Lingus operation are totally inefficient.

Pilots will be asked to fly longer hours at certain times to fit in with rostering that gives best service, but no more than the norm under European guidelines, the airline said.

“We cannot back down to the pilots on this,” said Aer Lingus business development manager Enda Corneille. “This is about the company taking a strategic view. The pilots cannot have a veto over commercial conditions.”

Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said he fully supported Aer Lingus in its attempts to lower its Belfast cost base, adding it would be “madness” to expect the company to transfer its working conditions to another jurisdiction.

“We will be 110% and four square feet behind [Aer Lingus boss] Dermot Mannion in his battle with those overpaid, underworked peacocks to lower his cost base. We think Aer Lingus should let them go on strike two days next week and two days the following week and let them keep striking until these morons see sense. The pilots in Ryanair threaten to strike every two years or so and they are told to f**k off. When they are dealt with like this they get a little less peacockish,” he said.