Aer Lingus to meet pilots today, reviving hopes of breakthrough

Aer Lingus will meet pilots on Thursday morning reviving hopes of a breakthrough in a dispute that has forced the airline to cancel 270 flights, hitting tens of thousands of passengers.

Members of the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa) at the company began a work to rule on Wednesday morning as they continued with their pursuit of a 24 per cent pay rise.

The company had already cancelled 13 flights, one from Cork to Heathrow, the rest from Dublin, to destinations including New York, Rome and London, affecting about 5,000 passengers, to preserve as many services as possible.

There were no further last-minute disruptions at Dublin Airport on Wednesday morning as a result of the work to rule.

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Passengers said technical problems delayed an Aer Lingus flight from Boston to the capital by about four hours on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, but this was unrelated to the pilots’ action.

Both the company and union confirmed around lunchtime on Wednesday that they had agreed to meet for further talks on Thursday morning at an undisclosed location close to Dublin Airport.

Aer Lingus said it wrote to the pilots’ trade union on Wednesday morning proposing to meet. Ialpa responded that it had accepted.

Neither the company nor the union commented further on Wednesday, but sources said each side told the other that they had not changed their position on the dispute’s crunch issues.

Ialpa maintains that the increase it seeks is reasonable in light of cost-of-living rises. Earlier this week its president, Capt Mark Tighe, said pilots were “simply trying to protect our incomes”.

Aer Lingus calls the claim “exorbitant”. The airline wants extra productivity from pilots in return for any increase greater than the 12.25 per cent accepted by other groups in the company.

Aer Lingus passengers at Dublin Airport on Wednesday were mostly relieved that their flights were taking off.

Deirdre Daly, returning to San Francisco after holidaying in her native Galway with family for four weeks, branded the row a “disgrace”. She had no difficulty with pilots seeking a pay rise. “But there has to be a better way of dealing with this, they’re at loggerheads the whole time,” Ms Daly said.