Aer Lingus to start telling passengers about flight cancellations

Aer Lingus is due to start informing passengers on Friday about planned cancellations next week as the airline prepares to face industrial action by its pilots.

The company plans to cancel between 22 and 44 flights daily from Wednesday June 26th to Sunday June 30th in response to a work to rule by its pilots in pursuit of a pay claim.

Up to 8,000 people may be affected each day.

The process of informing affected passengers is likely to last into tomorrow, as the airline bids to contact those whose flights face cancellation.

Aer Lingus is offering anyone who has booked a flight between Wednesday, June 26th and Tuesday July 2nd the opportunity to cancel and take a cash or voucher refund, or to alter their booking for free.

Aer Lingus will also contact travel agents and it advised anyone who booked flights through a third party to contact those businesses.

Most of the flights affected will be on routes connecting the Republic’s airports with Europe, but some transatlantic services may also be affected. Services from Cork, Dublin and Shannon airports will also be hit.

Aer Lingus stressed that cancelling flights in advance was an attempt to protect as many flights as possible and minimise last-minute disruption.

Donal Moriarty, Aer Lingus’s chief corporate affairs officer, said the pilots’ planned work to rule would have otherwise had unpredictable consequences, including last-minute flight cancellations.

“We want to emphasise that this is to protect as many of our services as possible,” Mr Moriarty said.

Members of the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa) plan a strict work to rule from June 26th, a move that Aer Lingus concedes will hit flights and holidaymakers, in their pursuit of a near-24 per cent pay increase.

[ What are my rights if industrial action at Aer Lingus affects my holiday plans? ]

EU rules requiring airlines to compensate passengers for cancellations will not apply where customers themselves opt to cancel their flights and take a cash or voucher refund, or if they change their booking for free.

Where flights are cancelled within 14 days, EU rules require airlines to pay each passenger compensation ranging from €250 for short-haul flights to €600 for long-haul trips, along with offering them fare refunds or alternative flights.

On the basis of Aer Lingus’s own fleet and previous payouts, compensation for a cancelled short-haul flight could cost the airline €40,000, while the bill for an axed North American service could reach €140,000.

Aer Lingus recently calculated that cancelling 13 transatlantic flights last September cost it €2 million, almost €154,000 on average. That would have included costs other than compensation.

Under the work to rule Ialpa members will work strictly to published rosters, with no overtime or out-of-hours duties, eliminating the normal flexibility that the company needs to operate its summer schedule.

Ialpa confirmed yesterday that Aer Lingus had not sought to meet the union since it served notice.