Talks at the Labour Relations Commission aimed at averting a potential shutdown of Aer Lingus services from next Tuesday due an industrial dispute involving pilots adjourned this evening and will resume tomorrow.
The Impact trade union, of which the Irish Airline Pilots Association is a branch, issued a statement this evening in which they said "some progress" had been made during today's talks.
The representatives of the pilots maintained today that the row over rosters stemmed ultimately from staff shortages which were the fault of management.
However, Aer Lingus Director of Human Resources Michael Grealy said the problem was not one of pilot shortages but rather one of pilot productivity.
Up to 30,000 passengers per day face serious disruption from next week if the dispute goes ahead.
Pilots at the airline have maintained that they are being asked to operate excessively onerous rosters as a result of a shortage of personnel. They maintain that under the current roster arrangements they may only get one day off after working five or six days.
The employer's group Ibec, of which Aer Lingus is a member strongly criticised the threatened industrial action by pilots as ”opportunism of the worst kind”, aimed at causing maximum disruption to the travelling public.
However Impact said that it had sought to raise the issue of the roster arrangements and pilot shortages with Aer Lingus repeatedly since last summer but that management did not engage on the issue.
Pilots have said that from Tuesday they would not work on rostered free days or annual leave days and would report for duty one hour later than their rosterered reporting times.