Aer Lingus cabin crew are expected to decide today to escalate their industrial action if the company fails to improve its offer after tomorrow's 24-hour strike.
Only 21 out of 160 flights are expected to operate tomorrow. These can accommodate up to 2,500 out of 18,000 passengers scheduled to fly. Sixteen of the flights will be in-bound and cabin crew will join the strike once the aircraft land. The other five flights are provided by One World Alliance members.
Meanwhile, the strike by 160 British Midland ground staff at Dublin Airport is to continue indefinitely. The company's 1,600 UK-based ground staff are also balloting for industrial action.
Aer Lingus, which is busy today trying to offer passengers alternative bookings, had considered leasing aircraft but decided not to, partly because of the cost but also because it might worsen an already bitter industrial relations environment.
However, management sources intimated that such contingency measures could be undertaken if the dispute escalated.
Yesterday each side blamed the other for the breakdown in talks at the Labour Court. The company's director of group corporate affairs, Mr Dan Loughrey, said customers "will have no services on Wednesday due to the intransigence of IMPACT".
The Labour Court recommendation addressed all the disputed issues, advising pay rises of 20 per cent to those on the lower end of the pay scales, a minimum increase of £2,000 to all cabin crew and a shortened pay band where staff reach the top of the scale after 15 years.
"In two days of direct talks last week IMPACT actually increased their demands to cost 50 per cent more than the Labour Court recommendation," said Mr Loughrey. This was "totally unsustainable" and "completely unreasonable" from the company's point of view.
IMPACT denied it had been "intransigent" at recent meetings and accused the company of refusing to listen to staff. A spokesman said: "Over 98 per cent of cabin crew rejected its [Aer Lingus's] proposals a week ago. The company's only response in Sunday's talks was that they should now accept them.
"It is not credible to ask cabin crew to totally reverse their position in a week. There can be no settlement to this dispute unless Aer Lingus addresses the fact that, under these proposals, staff would have to work 35 years before reaching a salary of £25,000.
"The proposed package would also store up future industrial relations problems by institutionalising two-tier working conditions. Staff doing the same job on the same aeroplane would be subject to totally different working conditions.
"Nobody wants a strike, least of all cabin crew who are the public face of Aer Lingus. Cabin crew feel they have been forced into industrial action by a company that refuses to negotiate seriously."
In the British Midland stoppage, the company has flown extra staff in to Dublin to keep its check-in and baggage handling operations working, but it accepts passengers are experiencing delays of up to two hours.
Ground staff at Dublin and British airports are seeking better compensation terms for their transfer to Gatwick Haulage International Ltd. British Midland sold its ground handling operations to GHI for £72 million.
The ATGWU's regional organiser, Mr Ben Carney, said last night other airport workers in Dublin had indicated their willingness to support the strikers. Meanwhile, British Midland ground staff at Heathrow met twice yesterday on the Dublin dispute.
A company spokeswoman said last week that British employees were expected to accept the terms rejected by its 160 Irish personnel, but GMB organiser Mr Derek Addison, who represents 1,200 of the UK staff, said strike ballots were being distributed and he expected the result to favour action.
He said of the £72 million paid by GHI only £12 million was for the physical assets of the ground handling operations.