AER Lingus has agreed to allow employees in its TEAM aircraft maintenance subsidiary who transfer to FLS to maintain their Aer Lingus pensions.

The move has been welcomed as a "breakthrough" by the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, as it removes a key concern expressed to her by many TEAM workers.

TEAM employees have until the end of June to accept the Aer Lingus offer, which is crucial to the airline as it would pave the way for selling the subsidiary to FLS Industries, a Danish conglomerate.

The Minister identified pensions as an issue of concern to the employees. Aer Lingus had proposed that the workers, with FLS approval, be moved to an identical pension fund that would give the same rights and benefits as they have at present within the Aer Lingus fund.

But the airline is understood to have told the Minister yesterday that it now agreed workers transferring to FLS could choose to the stay in the Aer Lingus pension fund. It now remains to be seen whether resolution of the pensions issue will encourage enough workers to agree to the FLS takeover.

FLS suspended negotiations with Aer Lingus when only 600 TEAM workers - or 40 per cent of the workforce - returned the original forms, although it remains interested in buying TEAM.

A second letter, urging acceptance of the Aer Lingus offer, has been sent to the approximately 930 workers who failed to respond to the earlier call, saying the FLS option was the only viable one.