With less than 48 hours to go until strikes could bring the country’s main airports grinding to a halt, tens of thousands of intending passengers will only find out this afternoon whether an attempt to legally prevent the Siptu action has been successful.

The Dublin Airport Authority will today seek to legally prevent Friday’s four-hour closure of the country’s main airports — and the likely disruption to tens of thousands of passengers — through strike action by members of Siptu.

No meaningful action has been taken to confront much less resolve the pensions’ crisis, betrayal and inequity facing hundreds of thousands of workers and their dependants.

The Dublin Airport Authority will next Tuesday seek an injunction preventing Siptu from closing Cork and Dublin airports for four hours on March 14.

Siptu is planning a “relentless series of industrial action running through the summer and right into the autumn” at both Dublin Airport Authority and Aer Lingus, if there is no resolution to a three-year pensions dispute.

Only one in 10 SMEs apply for public sector contracts in what is a very lucrative €12bn market.

Aer Lingus has significantly upped the ante in its long-running battle with the country’s largest trade union by moving to sue Siptu and its pensions policy advisor, Dermot O’Loughlin.

Siptu is to seek legal advice on how it can press ahead with strikes at the country’s airports in the event that the ongoing pensions dispute remains unresolved.

The absence of transatlantic flights from Cork Airport is costing the county jobs, the developer of a huge office campus at the centre of Cork’s latest jobs boost has warned.

Siptu has warned strikes which will ground thousands of passengers at the country’s three main airports in the run-up to the St Patrick’s Bank Holiday will, as of now, still go ahead in spite of an intervention in the pensions dispute by the Government, IBEC and ICTU.

Unions at Aer Lingus, Dublin Airport Authority, and Shannon Airport Authority will spend the next fortnight discussing a campaign of co-ordinated industrial action over their members’ pensions.

The Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar said yesterday that the independent Shannon Airport has exceeded his expectations to record a profit in its first year of operation.

A High Court judge has set out 11 questions for determination by the Court of Justice of the EU concerning whether European Commission decisions approving EU-US data transfer channels are valid.

A pensioner who claimed she fell over baggage, hurting her knee after she went through security at Dublin Airport before flying out on a trip-of-a-lifetime, has lost her High Court action.

Low-cost, long-haul airline Norwegian could face two inquiries into its decision to cancel winter flights from Cork and Shannon Airports to the US, just nine months after launching a year-round service.

Around half of flights in Europe could be delayed due to a fault with an air traffic management system.

Here's your morning news bulletin...

A Dutch company’s challenge against a decision by the DAA to award a €50m contract to operate electronics stores at Dublin Airport to another company has been admitted to the Commercial Court list.

Aer Lingus nearly doubled its profits to €104m in the first half of the year, new figures from parent IAG show.

Dublin Airport Authority and its masters must fast-track the airport and facility expansion process, writes Joe Gill