Flights at Dublin Airport disrupted tonight

Flights in and out of Dublin Airport face serious delays between 10.30pm and 11.30pm tonight due to labour dispute involving air traffic controllers.

A decision was made by management of air traffic control to suspend work during that hour due to genuine lack of cover available, and a labour dispute between the union IMPACT and the Irish Aviation Authority.

Air traffic controllers said during the week that they would no longer work overtime because of what they claimed was the lack of the required number of controllers needed due to the increase in the number of flights over the recent years.

Talks held at the Labour Relations Commission on Thursday secured an agreement that saw a suspension of the workers refusal to work overtime until negotiations took place with the company.

This evening, due to the genuine illness of a controller, and the low staff numbers at the department at that time of the evening, a decision was made to not have any controller at work during that hour.

A IMPACT union official confirmed that every effort was made to get off duty personnel to cover the shift, but his efforts proved unsuccessful.