Aer Lingus hires planes and crew from Ryanair

AER LINGUS has “wet leased” nine aircraft and crews from other carriers in order to maintain service to passengers for the duration of its dispute with its cabin crew.

The airline yesterday leased four aircraft and crews from its rival and minority shareholder Ryanair, three from Monarch and two from Titan.

The airline said the short-term leases will enable the airline to operate a full schedule “on an ongoing basis if necessary”.

Aer Lingus chief executive Christoph Mueller has placed an open letter to passengers both on the airline’s website and in the media apologising for the disruption caused this week.

“It is extremely disappointing and frustrating that our staff have been so badly misled by the IMPACT trade union,” Mr Mueller writes in the letter.

“This union has repeatedly refused to implement the Greenfield business recovery plan agreement, which 93% of crew signed up to almost a year ago.”

The move came after Aer Lingus was yesterday forced to ground 2,700 passengers on 34 flights to and from 17 European destinations due to the dispute with its cabin crew in which staff are refusing to work new rosters introduced by the airline on Monday.

As of last night 120 of those staff had been brought into meetings with the company’s human resources department, offered the chance to sign undertakings to obey the rosters and, when they refused, been removed from duty and from the payroll.

The airline claimed that for the first time this week, a small number of staff brought to the HR meetings yesterday had, when offered the chance to sign the undertaking, agreed and been allowed to keep working.

However, an IMPACT trade union spokesman denied that, pointing out that each staff member had union representation at the meetings with the company and IMPACT would have been aware of that happening.

IMPACT said its members remain determined not to be bullied by the company into accepting rosters which were imposed in spite of a Labour Relations Commission recommendation that the changes be reached by agreement.

It also questioned the wisdom of management in spending considerable sums of money to lease aircraft and crews when its members were all turning up to work willing to operate the airline’s full timetable under the pre-Monday rosters.

It said the move was all the more implausible when one considered that the central plank in the dispute, the achievement of 850 annual block hours per cabin crew member, was very close to being achieved as staff were already working 830 hours.

Cabin crew staff who have been taken off duty/payroll will this morning assemble in uniform to report for duty en masse.

At 11am they will walk to the main entrance of Dublin Airport’s Terminal 2 before making their way to Aer Lingus headquarters where they will present a letter to Christoph Mueller expressing their concerns at their removal.