Aer Lingus begins contacting thousands of passengers affected by flight cancellations next week due to industrial action

Pilots at Aer Lingus are to begin an indefinite work-to-rule from next Wednesday after balloting for industrial action, which means they will not engage in overtime or out-of-hours duties.

Tens of thousands of Aer Lingus passengers face days of uncertainty and potential travel chaos as one in five flights are at risk of being cancelled.

With industrial action by pilots due to start on Wednesday, Aer Lingus said it might have to cancel as many as 44 flights a day in the first five days of the unrest.

That is up to a fifth of the roughly 220 flights a day the airline operates during the busy summer season.

It will upend travel plans for as many as 8,000 people a day.

The move has been branded as “insidious” by the company, which is cancelling up to 20pc of flights over a five-day period.

Donal Moriarty, chief corporate affairs officer with Aer Lingus, said they were taking the move to prevent further cancellations.

He said that this form of industrial action “gets worse day by day” and that there was a risk that further cancellations would be needed.

“What will happen over the next couple of days is that impacted passengers will be contacted and advised of cancellations if it affects them and then given their options in terms of refund, re-accommodation or voucher,” he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.

He said that people have also been given the option to cancel or rebook their flights for a later date for free.

Pilots, represented by the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa), are seeking a pay increase of 24pc, which they say equates to inflation since the last pay rise in 2019.

Aer Lingus has described the pay demand as unrealistic and said there had been no pay deals in Ireland that delivered such an increase.

It is understood that the airline’s short-haul routes across Europe will be most heavily impacted.

That means holiday plans, weddings and other family events will be scuppered for a large number of customers. Business travellers will also face huge disruption.

However, passengers will have to wait and see whether they are directly impacted, with the airline promising more information in the coming days.

The airline has warned it will have to cancel between 10pc and 20pc of its flights every day as the pilots stage action in the pay dispute.

Aer Lingus has already warned that the effects of the indefinite work-to-rule by pilots will get worse as it drags on.

And it is believed Aer Lingus still will not know until early next week what type of additional capacity it can secure to try to re-accommodate passengers on other airlines, or what extra jets it might be able to hire to help it get passengers to their destinations.

Speaking this morning, the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa) president Captain Mark Tighe said the claim that 20pc of flights could be cancelled during the industrial action raises questions about the management of the airline, if it is reliant on pilots working on their day off or out of contract to “bring people from A to B”.

“A work-to-rule very simply means that people work to their contracts, the contract to which they are employed. Some serious questions need to be raised here about management’s operation of the airline because, think about it, they’re selling tickets, so they’re committing to bring people from A to B so they have to have those pilots,” he said.

Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Mr Tighe said the claim that up to 20pc of flights could be cancelled during the industrial action “because pilots don’t want to work on their day off” is “not credible” and equates to a shortage of pilots.

He said the 24pc increase pilots are seeking account for the cumulative increase of inflation over time and the airline group already sanctioned the same increase for sister airline British Airways’ pilots.

Tánaiste calls on both sides in the Aer Lingus dispute to get back around the table

“I’d ask anybody to think about their own situation and they’re watching their pay erode, their ability to buy erode with inflation and as the CSO has shown, the majority of people have achieved inflation over time and we’re looking for people to consider that we deserve that as well.”

He said the duration of the industrial action is dependent on management, adding that talks on the issue have been effectively ongoing for 22 months.

Meanwhile, Donal Moriarty, who is the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer with Aer Lingus, has said references to any 24pc pay increase received by British Airways pilots are “inaccurate” as he described the industrial action being taken as “particularly insidious”.

He said the airline had to cancel between 10-20pc of flights scheduled for the first five days of industrial action, describing the “strict” work-to-rule as a “particularly insidious form of industrial action”.

Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said: “It is really impactful on our services and in order to, I suppose, protect our passengers and prevent the situation from being worse, involving more cancellations, we had to take this step.

“What will happen over the next couple of days is that impacted passengers will be contacted and advised of cancellations if it affects them and then given their options in terms of refunds. We’ve also proactively offered to people who are anxious about their travel in the week starting on June 26 that they can proactively cancel their own flight, get a refund, get a voucher or indeed book to a later date.”

He said the impact of the industrial action which will be taken by pilots is “cumulative and insidious”, adding: “It gets worse day by day as the roster becomes less efficient and therefore, there is the risk that an increasing level of cancellation is going to be required over time.”

Mr Moriarty said the airline is “keen” to avoid that scenario and would like to engage in direct discussions to reach a “reasonable settlement to this pay dispute”.

He described Mr Tighe’s claim that British Airways pilots received the same increase being sought by Aer Lingus pilots as “inaccurate” as the airline “did a three-and-a-half year pay deal with a 15.5pc pay increase”.

“Also, the reference to 24pc being aligned to inflation, there have been no pay deals done in the Irish economy within the public sector or any other relevant sector that delivered a 24pc pay increase. The reference that ialpa is making to CSO data is very selective and inaccurate and skewed by the inclusion of outlier sectors such as the information and technology sector.”

He said the airline values the pilots and there was a pay deal of 12.25pc on offer, adding that the airline is open to intervention from other forums such as the Workplace Relations Commission.

Cancellations

It is understood the flight cancellations next week will be biased towards short-haul services.

And the industrial action will not affect Aer Lingus Regional services, which are operated by a separate company on a franchise basis.

Aer Lingus Regional pilots agreed a pay deal earlier this year.

But the Ialpa and IAG-owned Aer Lingus appear to be hunkering down for a drawn-out dispute.

Captain Mark Tighe said the pilots’ pay claim of 24pc equals inflation since their last pay rise in 2019 and is “entirely affordable”.

He claimed management is insisting that pilots must “sell” their working conditions in exchange for any increase, while the airline is making “enormous profits”.

But Aer Lingus has slammed the action by pilots as “insidious”.

Taoiseach Simon Harris yesterday said it was “utterly reprehensible” that children are being “used as pawns” in the dispute, as families prepare to head off on holidays.

“The idea that passengers – children due to go on their summer holiday – would be used as pawns in an industrial relations dispute that has already been considered by the Labour Court is utterly reprehensible, and people need to step back from the brink,” Mr Harris said.

Sources have said that IAG, which also owns British Airways, Iberia and Vueling, will stand firm in the face of the pilots’ pay demand, as it could cause contagion throughout the group.

The pilots are seeking a near 24pc pay rise. Aer Lingus has offered 12.25pc.

An independent pilot pay tribunal last year recommended a 12.25pc increase in consolidated pay and a 1.5pc rise in unconsolidated pay for the pilots.

The Labour Court issued an interim recommendation last month that would have seen the pilots receive a 9.25pc pay increase. That proposal was accepted by Aer Lingus but was overwhelmingly rejected by pilots.

Aer Lingus issued a statement last night saying it had now assessed the impact of the planned action by Ialpa.

“The ‘work-to-rule’ announced is an insidious form of industrial action which will have a cumulative and negative impact on Aer Lingus customers,” it said. “Its indefinite form is designed to severely disrupt passengers in the peak of the summer season. The impact will cause many flight cancellations – many of which may happen close to the time of travel.”

It said the cancellations it is planning in the first five days of the action will be put in place over the next two days.

“Implementing these cancellations is to enable us to protect as many services as possible for as many of our customers as possible,” it said.

“The details of those cancellations will be communicated to impacted customers over the next couple of days.”

Aer Lingus has also announced that it will be offering a number of options to customers who may be impacted.

Customers scheduled to travel between June 26 and July 2 will be given the option to change their flights for free, it said. They will also be able to cancel their flight and claim a refund or voucher. ​

The Aer Lingus travel advisory page will have up-to-the-minute information on all the options.