Aer Lingus management and pilots meet in last-ditch talks

DISRUPTIVE strike action at Aer Lingus is looking increasingly likely as management and pilots prepared to meet in last-ditch talks at the Labour Relations Commission.

The talks — over terms and conditions for staff at the airline’s new Belfast base — have been stopping and starting for the last two weeks, but while the sides have kept their commitment to the commission chief Kieran Mulvey to keep the contents of the discussions out of the public eye, the language being used has not been optimistic.

One member of the pilot’s representatives, IMPACT, and the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association, when asked if the talks were going well, told the Irish Examiner:

“They are going. You can take from that what you will.”

These negotiations were only brought about after a 48-hour strike by all 480 of the airline’s pilots was called off in response to a company offer to join pilots at the commission. That offer, however, was extended only on the premise that management would discuss how the introduction of local rates for pilots in the north would impact on their counterparts in the south.

That was not what the pilot unions wanted as they were not prepared to allow their counterparts in Belfast to be placed under inferior entitlements.

While Aer Lingus chief Dermot Mannion will attend the meetings for the first time today, it is unclear how long both sides will allow the talks to continue before one or both decide their differences cannot be breached at the industrial relations forum.

The pilot unions have already said the threat of industrial action will be reinstated immediately in that eventuality.