THE president of the Irish Travel Agents' Association, Mr P.J. Brennan, said yesterday the proposed strike at Aer Lingus next Tuesday would have "horrific consequences" for the travelling public.
Two hours of talks between Aer Lingus management and SIPTU, representing cabin crew members in dispute with the company, failed to make any progress yesterday.
A SIPTU official, Mr Des Hughes, said, initially, industrial action would be directed at Aer Lingus management by working to rule. "Our problem is with them, not with the travelling pubic." He warned, however, that the strike may escalate if the [union cannot get satisfaction from the company.
About 40,000 people fly in and out of Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports each day at this time of the year. The industry fears an escalation which could embrace staff in Aer Rianta, the airports' authority, and lead to the closure of the airports.
"I can tell you as president of the association, a strike in Aer Lingus is not what we want at this moment," Mr Brennan said.
Budget Travel has a contingency plan in the event of a strike, its joint managing director, Ms Gillian Bowler, said yesterday. She said holidaymakers would experience some disruption to schedules but Budget was aiming to keep it to a minimum.
Budget uses a number of air lines, including Aer Lingus, for its holiday charter programme. Ms Bowler said she did not anticipate any difficulty in replacing the Aer Lingus flights if the need arises.
Aer Lingus has relatively little of the holiday charter business out of Ireland. Mr Paul Hackett of Joe Walsh Tours reckons that of the 500,000 seats on the market Aer Lingus accounts for only 50,000 to 80,000. This is partly due to a lack of capacity and partly due to a tendency for tour operators to have their own airlines.
Thomson Holidays, the newest entrant in the Irish market, uses Brittania Airways, which it owns. Falcon Holidays uses Air 2000 while Joe Walsh Tours uses Translift and Ryanair.
The dispute concerns the presence of a Delta crew member on the Aer Lingus flights to New York. Under the terms of a Worldwide Partnership agreement with Delta, the American carrier guarantees to buy 40 seats on the flight and wants to have one of its own cabin crew on aboard.
Mr Hughes says that would represent a loss of a job and SIPTU and the other unions have made sufficient sacrifices under the terms of the Cahill rescue plan for Aer Lingus. "We lost 1,500 jobs that's a lot of jobs," Mr Hughes added.
The Aer Lingus spokesman said SIPTU was insisting that the Delta cabin crew member occupy a passenger seat rather than a crew seat. "That is unacceptable to us it would represent the loss of £300,000 in revenue annually." The spokesman added that SIPTU had told the company the notice of strike action from 12.01 am. on Tuesday stands.
Mr Hughes said there will be a general meeting of SIPTU workers in a Dublin hotel tomorrow night. The union will meet again on Bank Holiday Monday. He said they are ready to meet the company at any time if the company has "something constructive" to put on the table.
Mr Barry Twomey, a New York based tour operator, said a strike at Aer Lingus would cause havoc at this stage of the tourist season. A new scheduled service by World Airways from a number of American cities to Ireland begins next Thursday.
A strike would also disrupt a press conference in London next Wednesday where Aer Lingus plans to unveil its new Premier Europe service.