Action affected 2,500 passengers in Cork

Some 26 Aer Lingus flights due to carry an estimated 2,500 passengers were affected at Cork Airport by the cabin crew strike.

Over 80 cabin crew members of IMPACT picketed the airport from 8 a.m. to noon and again from 4 p.m. until 6 p.m.

Twelve flights to and from Dublin along with a further 12 to and from Heathrow were affected as were outward and return flights from Birmingham, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

According to Cork Airport general manager, Joe O'Connor, the stoppage resulted in a reduction of over 60 per cent in passenger numbers.

There was little evidence of disruption at the airport with few passengers turning up for the cancelled services. "We'd very few people turning up here to discover their flights had been cancelled - most people just didn't travel. It seems that the Aer Lingus campaign to alert the public worked. We had very few disgruntled travellers. "

According to Mr O'Connor, the airport would usually handle around 4,000 to 5,000 passengers on an average weekday. "We would estimate that the cancellation of the Aer Lingus flights would have affected somewhere over 60% of our business."