MANAGEMENT AND pilots at Aer Lingus are to attend talks at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) in a bid to avert industrial action planned for next week.
The dispute could cause disruption for up to 30,000 passengers a day from next Tuesday.
The Irish Airline Pilots Association (Ialpa), which is a branch of the trade union Impact, yesterday served notice of industrial action on the carrier as part of a dispute over rosters.
The union said that following a ballot of members, in which 87 per cent voted in favour of industrial action, pilots would not work on rostered free days or annual leave days and would report for duty one hour later than their rosterered reporting times.
Aer Lingus chief executive Christoph Mueller said that the planned industrial action could lead to cancellation of services from next week. He said the planned withdrawal of flexibility by pilots would “destroy our ability to operate a proper schedule as we will miss our airport slot times, parking stands, gate positions and will be unable to fulfil flight connections for customers”.
The company fears the move to report one hour later than the scheduled rostered time would leave the working schedule for pilots out of sync with those of cabin crew and flight times for passengers. Sources said that within half a day flight operations would be in chaos.
A spokesman for Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar said the department would be monitoring the situation closely over the coming days and that it urged the parties to engage with the LRC.
The dispute centres on rosters for pilots which the union maintains are overly onerous.
An Impact spokesman said the problem stemmed from insufficient pilots in Aer Lingus to maintain the roster. Consequently, pilots would end up working six days out of seven throughout the summer.
The union said the issue over rosters for pilots had persisted since last summer, noting the pilots had sought to raise the issue with management on several occasions but there had been no developments until recent days.
Company sources said the roster issues had arisen as a result of the higher demands for leave in the summer at a time when flight operations were at a peak. In addition there had been an increased turnover of pilots at some of the company’s bases.
Aer Lingus is to attend talks at the LRC on the issue today. Impact is to attend tomorrow.
In a statement yesterday Mr Mueller said: “This withdrawal of flexibility will destroy our ability to operate a proper schedule.
“This may lead to a full cancellation of operations from Tuesday 7 June unless Ialpa/Impact stand down their action.”
