Which flights will be cancelled this morning?
All flights staffed by Aer Lingus cabin crew have been cancelled except where cabin crew are returning from overseas locations. These include Amsterdam, Brussels, Helsinki/Stockholm, Birmingham and Manchester. Details can be obtained from the company website at www.aerlingus.ie.
Other airlines are expected to operate to full capacity but are not expected to run extra flights. Aer Lingus accounts for almost half of flights from Dublin and the majority of flights from Shannon and Cork airports.
How long will the disruption last?
The strike by cabin crew will end at midnight. However, passengers travelling to destinations such as Amsterdam and Paris could face delays tomorrow morning because cabin crew rostered for these routes are expected to continue industrial action for 24 hours after their return to base.
Delays to flights because of action by baggage handlers are likely to continue after the cabin crew resume normal working tomorrow. So far this action has caused delays of up to three hours in the early part of the day, reducing to about an hour by early evening as the backlog is cleared. However, baggage handlers could switch their disruptive tactics to afternoon or evening flights without warning.
Caterers are continuing their "rolling action" which is disrupting meals for passengers. Some meals are being bought in at other locations or sandwiches provided.
Will it get worse?
Probably. Even if IMPACT cabin crew do not resume industrial action and talks begin, SIPTU clerical staff have served strike notice for next Tuesday. If this goes ahead not only will internal operations such as the payment of wages slowly shut down but so will sections dealing with the public, such as reservations and check-in facilities. The pilots are still refusing to work unrostered hours to put pressure on the company in pursuit of their own pay claim.
Are Aer Lingus staff badly paid?
Yes. The company used to be a flagship employer but when it began to encounter financial difficulties in the 1980s it became one of the first companies to introduce "yellow pack" rates for new recruits. In the Cahill Plan in 1994 staff agreed to a wage freeze and up to 1,200 redundancies to help avert closures. Cabin crew start on casual contracts at £5 per hour, caterers and clerical staff start at less than £10,000 a year and all three groups must wait over 20 years to progress to the top of their respective scales at between £15,000 and £18,000.
Even pilots, who can progress from £29,000 to £89,000 over a 26-year scale, compare poorly with British Airways scales of £45,000 sterling to £150,000. Both companies are in the One World alliance and the pilots' union, IMPACT, claims they are the lowest-paid within the group.
So why doesn't the company pay them more?
The company accepts the "legitimacy" of pay demands from "some categories" of employees. It has already offered to cut two points off the bottom of the cabin crew scale in talks with SIPTU at the Labour Relations Commission. This amounts to £1,400 or roughly 14 per cent. However it says it cannot afford to pay 14 per cent to everyone, let alone the 100 per cent pay rise demanded by pilots.
Operating profits were £56 million last year, well above average for a "comfort" carrier airline. However, its wage bill is £200 million, of which nearly £50 million goes to the pilots, who comprise one tenth of the workforce. It also has to pay the first phase of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness this year, worth £11 million and to put an extra £5 million investment in its pension fund. An increase of 14 per cent for everyone, plus the PPF and pension fund, would almost wipe out operating profits.
Where does the dispute go from here?
Probably to the Labour Relations Commission and then the Labour Court. But a lot depends on the internal dynamics of the dispute. The company is far from convinced that SIPTU and IMPACT have a stable enough working relationship to allow for meaningful negotiations. The two unions are suspicious of each other and the company. The row about which union should represent which cabin crew could erupt again. SIPTU members in other grades, particularly catering, have itchy feet and might try to defect, although that threat seems to be receding.