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LAST UPDATE | 1 Jul 2024
AER LINGUS AND the pilots’ union engaged in ongoing industrial action are continuing late into the night as part of efforts hoped to avert further travel disruption amid the busy summer holiday period.
The Irish Air Line Pilots’ Association (IALPA) were in the middle of discussions around the possibility of escalating their industrial action when the invite was issued.
The meeting began at around 2.30pm this afternoon and are still on going.
Earlier, reporters and photographers outside the venue saw IALPA members and negotiators return to the court after a short break with refreshments – insinuating the talks were to continue into the night.
Both sides had blamed the other for prolonging the stand-off that has led to almost 400 flights being cancelled and disrupted tens of thousands of passengers’ travel plans.
On previous hearings, the Labour Court dismissed the parties as a resolution could not be made.
However, after the ramping up of industrial action at the weekend – in the form of an eight-hour strike on Saturday – the court invited both parties back to mediate the debate. This is the longest mediation talks have continued out of all sessions so far.
On his way into talks, the airline’s chief corporate affairs officer Donal Moriarty said the meetings would be challenging.
“This dispute is causing significant financial and reputational damage to Aer Lingus and it’s impacting negatively on everyone that’s connected with the company, including our passengers,” he said.
“So we’ve no doubt that the engagement today in the Labour Court will be challenging, but we’re willing to engage in that meaningfully.”
Moriarty added: “We’ve always been willing to engage in meaningful discussion and negotiation and we will continue that approach in the Labour Court today.”
An indefinite work-to-rule began on Wednesday, with pilots now refusing to work overtime, accept changes to set rosters, or take on out-of-hours management requests.
All-out strike action also took place on Saturday between 5am and 1pm.
Across the Atlantic, pilots in Boston, Orlando and Seattle formed pickets in support of Aer Lingus pilots. Those who participated are members of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).
Close to 400 flights have been cancelled so far, with tens of thousands of passengers impacted.
On Friday, Aer Lingus announced it was cancelling a further 122 flights and said it had taken this action to “protect as many services as possible”.
Details of the services impacted are set out on the ‘Travel Advisory’ page of the Aer Lingus website, and communication is sent to affected customers.
Impacted customers will be given the option to change their flights for free or can claim a refund or voucher.
Aer Lingus said it “fully understands the anxiety being experienced by customers given the uncertainty caused by IALPA’s industrial action” and that it is “giving impacted customers as many options as possible”.
Talks have been ongoing for close to two years between Aer Lingus and IALPA, with IALPA previously rejecting a Labour Court recommendation that would have increased pay by 9.25%.
IALPA is seeking a pay increase of 23.8% over three years, which it says is “clearly reasonable and affordable for a profitable company such as Aer Lingus.”
The union noted that in 2023, Aer Lingus had a full year operating profit of €225 million.
This was a 400% increase on 2022, when a full year operating profit of €45 million was recorded.
However, Aer Lingus has said it is willing to offer pay increases of 12.5% or above if “improvements in productivity and flexibility” are discussed.
Both IALPA and Aer Lingus attended separate meetings with the Labour Court last Tuesday, but the Court said it would not be intervening at this time and would review the matter in July.
Speaking on Saturday, IALPA president Mark Tighe said he was not aware whether they would be in the same room or not, as previous meetings had seen management and pilots hold discussions separately.
Aer Lingus meanwhile welcomed the Labour Court invitation and expressed “hope” that today’s engagement in the court “can result in an outcome that will bring normality to the travelling public”.
Speaking before last week’s unsuccessful Labour Court meeting where talks eventually broke down, Taoiseach Simon Harris urged both to “engage” rather than “put people through agony and chaos”.
He said there would be “very little sympathy and support for anybody who puts the travelling public through utter chaos” if they are not “engaging intensively”.
-With additional reporting from Press Association and Muiris O’Cearbhaill
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What a devastating disaster. To destroy such an old established business like this. Hope ye can stay going and regroup. Nothing sacred anymore.
Ann
Maybe someone else nearby with a Catering Kitchen could allow her to use their kitchen on a quiet, or a shut shop, day? Esp’ if it has its own “Free Power”/Off-Grid Renewable supply (to keep overheads down – for both parties). A lot of places don’t open on Mondays, Tuesdays, & Wednesdays anymore. If she could still meet even half her clients’ orders that fit with the days she has kitchen access (for retention of freshness), it would give her a fighting chance to keep the business *in business* and ticking over while the Tradies are in the bakery unit restoring and renovating the place…. after the insurance finally inspects & processes whatever payment they intend.
Also – There should not be any water *still* pouring out into her shop unit. Would the Firefighters not have given her a hand there to find the external stopcock and turn off the mains supply to the store entirely.
Unless it’s coming from a loft or rooftop storage tank? But even then, it should quit eventually when it runs out of water . . . .unless, again, the mains outside is not turned off and is still supplying the tank.
We’ll keep the fingers crossed for them anyway.
Best of luck bouncing back
Hope they’ve got adequate insurance that will cover rebuilding and possibly loss of earnings. Even so, next year’s premium might be off the wall. Hate to see a decent family-run business like that destroyed. Not too many left anymore.
Is it possible that the fire could be caused by the ole reliable climate change claim ? Asking for an insurance friend of mine
1862 was a long time ago. Thought it was mostly spuds on the menu then
@The Hard Road: Is that what you thought? Read much?
@Jack Hayes: Comments section is full of w anchors.
@Jack Hayes: I stand corrected. I had thought there were lots of people subsisting on potatoes rather than cream cakes during that period of Irish history. Now I know better
@The Hard Road: Like the man in the orthopaedic shoes.
@The Hard Road: Everything was on the menu then, if you had the wherewithal to pay for it!
@The Hard Road: You are on the right track …-ish. Spuds were never the problem. Wholesale confiscation of all livestock, tillage crops, and grains, by Britain, as “Taxes” surplus to coin taxes and rents, were the problem. All the “tenant” farmer was left with to sustain themselves were usually a few spuds and other scarce bits. Potato crop failed the years of the Famine Genocide, AND Britain still continued to levy and escalate confiscation of all harvests and livestock.
But you would definitely be correct. Very few indigenous Irish would have had the option or opportunity to eat home made cakes, let alone *purchased* bakery goods from the City. Back then, the shop probably predominantly supplied indigenous Protestants who had favourable access to higher salaried professional occupations and lay jobs; and the non-indigenous, like Brits, who held all the Wealth (from Resource stripping).
That is not to say there wouldn’t have been a fair few indigenous Catholics who had reasonably well paid jobs and/or happened to have multiple teenage children capable of and succeeding in getting a lower paid City job who’s wages would then all go into the pot for the mother to run the house (and, buy a rare cake on a rare special occasion).
So it wasn’t wholly impossible for indigenous Irish Catholics to purchase a cake.
It was just far more probable the Protestant Privileged, and the foreign Resource Strippers, were the more common customer (possibly alongside tea shops and other commercial enterprises that didn’t have an in-house baker)
@Pink Freud: comprehensive and factual answer.
@Pink Freud: Sort of what we have now but with multinationals
That picture brought me back .Terrible news and places like this are very few nowadays. Some are intent on destruction and for what purpose? I hope they recover. I have a yearning for a jam doughnut now.
Ireland wants a franchise here. Greggs maybe
@Thesaltyurchin: But do we really, you have clearly have not tasted anything from Greggs.
@Michael Ward: Sarcasm. Apologies, it’s a hard one when read in context. But we do prefer our shop owners to run a Centra, our coffee to be Starbucks. Imagine it’s less work for officials to do, bigger employers, lower wages. If a costa goes bust it probably doesn’t even register a blip on their overall books. Ireland has never liked the SME (imo).
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