Aer Lingus and pilots are set to meet on Thursday in a fresh bid to resolve their deadlocked pay row.
The Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa) confirmed that it has accepted an invitation from management to a meeting to resolve the dispute.
The news came hours after the trade union began a work to rule on Wednesday morning in pursuit of a 23.88 per cent pay rise.
Aer Lingus cancelled flights due to carry around 5,000 people in advance in an effort to contain disruption.
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Dublin Airport was calm on Wednesday morning with few delays and no cancelled flights after the first wave of departures.
Taoiseach Simon Harris has welcomed the talks between Aer Lingus and Ialpa with a spokeswoman saying that he had “been clear this dispute is having a disproportionate impact on the travelling public. All disputes are resolved by compromise and negotiation. The Taoiseach urges both sides to engage in good faith to resolve this dispute.”
Aer Lingus has cancelled 270 flights over the next week to minimise disruption to its schedules arising from the work to rule by members of the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa), who also plan an eight hour strike on Saturday.
However, the travel arrangements of many others who had planned to travel over the next week remain up in the air as a result of the dispute, with neither side showing signs of moving as the industrial action began.
With more than 80 per cent of Aer Lingus flights taking off, most passengers who were travelling on Wednesday morning said they had not encountered any problems. Meanwhile, separate to the pilots’ action, it emerged that one of the airline’s Boston-Dublin flights was delayed for four hours on Tuesday evening for technical reasons.
The Labour Court on Tuesday told Ialpa and Aer Lingus, after meeting them separately, that it would not aid them in ending the dispute at this time. It said it would review the situation next week. Ialpa noted the court’s decision with its president, Capt Mark Tighe, stressing that industrial action would continue until the union’s concerns were addressed.
Under the work to rule, pilots will not operate outside of hours or accept changes to rosters, removing the flexibility that Aer Lingus needs to fly its busy summer schedule. There are fears that even slight delays connected to air traffic control problems, weather or other issues could quickly lead to chaos at Dublin Airport.
As a result of the industrial action, the airline announced the cancellation of a further 50 flights on Monday and Tuesday of next week with most of them on short-haul business routes to cities including London, Manchester, Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels and Frankfurt. In a statement, Aer Lingus said it was “continuing to offer a number of options to customers who may be impacted by the industrial action”.
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The union is seeking a pay increase of around 24 per cent, which it argues is in line with what pilots at other airlines have received and is reasonable during a cost of living crisis.
Capt Tighe on Wednesday accused the airline of moving from the negotiation phase to a “union busting phase”. He told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland the pilots did not want to be in this situation, but the “level of corporate greed” in Aer Lingus had led to the current impasse.
“It’s simply untrue that Aer Lingus is underperforming with an operating margin of 9.9 per cent, pretty much the same as British Airways and across other European airlines. This company is profitable. It made €225 million last year, forecast a massive increase in profits going forward. This is corporate greed.”
Aer Lingus has insisted that it remains available for discussions both directly and through the State’s industrial relations framework. It called on Ialpa to consider the damage the industrial action would cause for passengers, the company and the Irish economy.
Minister for Finance Michael McGrath said the situation at Aer Lingus was “very serious” and “damaging for the Irish economy, for our reputation, for tourism” and the lives of ordinary people.
Asked if the Government should intervene, Mr McGrath said the mediator in such disputes was the Labour Court and other “industrial relations machinery”. He said he hoped it did not become a “protracted dispute” that causes an even greater level of damage.
Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe told reporters in Dublin on Wednesday that the flight cancellations due at the weekend will do “untold damage to Ireland’s reputation as a country that is easy to come to” and “great harm” to tourism and business travel. He said he believed the action, coming as primary schools break for the summer, was timed in a way was “going to maximise harm to the travelling public”.
“That is why it is so important now that the mediation that is underway delivers a result,” he said.
Irish Travel Agents Association chief executive Clare Dunne said things had “settled a little bit” since the weekend but just as her members “were sort of sitting back and saying ‘Okay, let’s take a breath’, we had these new cancellations”.
“We’re waiting, really, with bated breath to see what’s actually going to happen once the work-to-rule starts to see if there will be mass cancellations at airport gates and if there is going to be people sitting there, checked in [and] ready to get on the plane only to be told ‘sorry’.”
She said that was “definitely a possibility if there’s any sort of air traffic control issues or if there is any other reason an aircraft is delayed and the outbound pilots [then] say they can’t fly because if they do they will be out of hours because of the work-to-rule”.
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