LRC intervenes in Aer Lingus dispute

Aer Lingus cabin crew have voted for industrial action

Aer Lingus' Privatisation...Library filer of an Aer Lingus plane lands at Dublin airport. Privatisation of the airline are expected to be announced. Around 2 billion euro ( 1.35 billion) are needed to expand the national airline's fleet. PRESS ASSOCIATION photo. Issue date: Monday August 28, 2006. Aer Lingus is expected to begin trading at the end of next month. See PA story CITY AerLingus. Photo Credit should read: Haydn West/PA...A

Some 91pc of the cabin crew at Aer Lingus have opted to take industrial action against the airline’s management.

Aer Lingus CEO Christoph Mueller

thumbnail: Aer Lingus cabin crew have voted for industrial action
thumbnail: Aer Lingus' Privatisation...Library filer of an Aer Lingus plane lands at Dublin airport. Privatisation of the airline are expected to be announced. Around 2 billion euro ( 1.35 billion) are needed to expand the national airline's fleet. PRESS ASSOCIATION photo. Issue date: Monday August 28, 2006. Aer Lingus is expected to begin trading at the end of next month. See PA story CITY AerLingus. Photo Credit should read: Haydn West/PA...A
thumbnail: Some 91pc of the cabin crew at Aer Lingus have opted to take industrial action against the airline’s management.
thumbnail: Aer Lingus CEO Christoph Mueller

The Labour Relations Commission has intervened in the dispute between Aer Lingus and IMPACT over its Shannon base.

The Commission’s Director of Conciliation Services. Kevin Foley has asked both parties to meet with him this Friday in the Commission’s offices in an attempt to find agreement in the dispute.

The airline confirmed last week that from March next year, it would no longer base cabin crew at Shannon.

The decision stems from a labour dispute over staffing arrangements for new Aer Lingus transatlantic services that are set to begin next year and will be using a smaller Boeing 757 aircraft.

The carrier is doubling its US-bound frequency from Shannon, as well as inaugurating new services from Dublin to San Francisco and Toronto.

Aer Lingus is leasing three Boeing aircraft from Air Contractors, a unit of Dublin-based firm ASL Aviation, and intended to use its own cabin crew on the aircraft.

Aer Lingus pilots have agreed to operate the aircraft.

The airline wanted to operate the aircraft with four cabin crew and claimed unions wanted five, even though the 757s are relatively small.

But Impact denied that was the case and said management had attempted to "bully its own staff into submission with an ultimatum, and then slammed the door on discussions when it announced it would outsource crew".

"Management did this despite the fact that cabin crew representatives made it very clear they were willing to discuss the matter further and had not, contrary to claims by management, refused to crew the flights with a complement of four crew members," said Impact official Michael Landers.

Aer Lingus told the union and staff in September that it intended to use outsourced crews as a result of the inability to resolve the dispute.

That saw 30 Aer Lingus cabin crew trainees being told that their training had been cancelled with immediate effect.

Aer Lingus chief executive Christoph Mueller told staff yesterday that there would be no changes to the airline's schedules and expansion plans at Shannon – but that "regrettably", the planned job creation would not be happening within the carrier.

"This is a situation that we never contemplated being in," he said.

A 30-day consultation with affected staff has begun.

They are likely to be offered redeployment to Dublin or Cork, voluntary redundancy – and could even be compulsorily let go.