A second tranche of 10-20 Aer Lingus pilots will receive compulsory redundancy notice within the week as the firm prepares for confrontation should pilots not accept the existing redundancy and early retirement terms.
The pilots' union, IMPACT, has recommended that members boycott information meetings addressed by Aer Lingus chief executive Mr Willie Walsh. It is understood that the latest one, held yesterday afternoon, was attended by only two pilots. IMPACT holds a special meeting tomorrow to discuss its response to the compulsory redundancies issued to junior co-pilots last week.
The firm has already purged the next highest-paid group of employees, senior managers. Mr Walsh said yesterday that the target of reducing managers by 40 to 80 has been met, while other restructuring targets are on schedule, including finalisation of discussions with NCB on going to the market to seek investors.
Mr Walsh said "98 per cent of the internal work has been done on preparing an information memorandum" with NCB, but the timing of any move was critical and has still to be decided.
With efforts to sell part of the State-owned firm set to intensify, British Airways said it was not interested in investing in Aer Lingus, a spokesman said. Alchemy Partners, a venture capital group also thought likely to be approached, is also understood to have ruled out investing in Aer Lingus.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding the timing of the search for an investor, Aer Lingus is believed to be preparing to approach other European airlines and venture capital groups.
With the pictures sold off the walls and plants removed from head office as part of the drive to cut costs to a minimum, Mr Walsh said there was no room for 80 surplus pilots. Some 44 trainee pilots have been let go, although their training has already cost the company €4.96 million (£4 million).
Twenty-two contract pilots will be phased out by next September. But the number of pilots opting to accept the redundancy/early retirement package from the core group of 530 pilots has only crept up to seven over the past week. The contract pilots have to be kept until their agreements expire and they are being used to reduce the bank of 1,600 weeks of leave owed by the company to its permanent staff. Mr Walsh says the leave owed to co-pilots will be eliminated by next March.
The main problem is with the 275 co-pilots, who can fly aircraft but are not qualified to take over all the duties of a captain. Mr Walsh wants 60 of these to leave and under a "Job and Work Security Agreement" made with the pilots in 1999 the company can actually seek compulsory redundancies on a last in-first out basis.
However, IMPACT is likely to insist that other conditions of the agreement such as the ending of codeshare agreements with British Airways, Crossair and SAS be enforced. Such a move would effectively put Aer Lingus out of business.
The key issue remains the compensation for pilots leaving the company, especially the early retirement package for senior captains. IMPACT has argued that they should receive lump sums based on service, similar to those offered to other employees. This could yield amounts of up to €230,000 (£181,000) according to the union, as opposed to the current cap of €63,500.
