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LAST UPDATE | 17 Jun 2024
AER LINGUS PILOTS have cast their paper ballots on whether to take industrial action, up to an including strike action, over a pay dispute.
Members of the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (IALPA) had already voted overwhelmingly in favour last week of taking industrial action, securing 98% support.
However, Aer Lingus questioned the legitimacy of the vote, which was conducted electronically.
In-person voting was open in two polling stations – one in Dublin and one in Cork – from Friday until 11am this morning.
It’s expected that a result will be known at around 4pm but travel commentator Eoghan Corry said it is a “foregone conclusion”.
Speaking on Newstalk’s Breakfast Briefing, Corry said he expects similar figures of above 90% to vote in favour of industrial action.
He added that Aer Lingus would face many issues around compensating passengers should strike action ensue.
Aer Lingus pilots who are members of the union are seeking a pay rise of 23.8% over three years, which would be similar to what British Airlines – a sister airline of Aer Lingus – awarded pilots in 2019.
Members have rejected a Labour Court recommendation that they should receive a pay increase agreement of 9.25% in the near term.
The IALPA said the 23.8% increase it is seeking is “clearly reasonable and affordable for a profitable company such as Aer Lingus.”
It 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, a spokesperson for Aer Lingus previously told The Journal that its pilots were “already very well paid” and that the ballot “risks jobs into the future”.
IALPA President Captain Mark Tighe said the result of the ballot taken last week showed that Aer Lingus pilots are “determined to secure a fair and reasonable pay rise after years of inflation”.
“Pilots have not had a pay increase since 2019 and made enormous sacrifices to save Aer Lingus during the pandemic,” Captain Tighe said.
“Now that the company is making bumper profits, it is only fair that our pay keeps up with inflation, and that we have the same purchasing power today as we did in 2019.”
Tighe said that the last time Aer Lingus pilots received a pay increase was in July 2019, and pointed to CSO data showing that Irish workers on average have received hourly pay increases of 24% since that time.
Aer Lingus meanwhile noted the ballot outcome last week but said that “any decision by IALPA to now serve notice of industrial action would be entirely unnecessary and regrettable and would result in significant disruption to the airline’s customers and to other employees”.
“Notwithstanding the ballot outcome, at this time direct discussions with IALPA are ongoing. Aer Lingus is also willing to request the support of the Workplace Relations Commission in order to further explore solutions,” the airline said.
-With additional reporting from Diarmuid Pepper
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The planned hotel is totally out of character for this historic street. I understand the area needs redevelopment but another box on box building is just awful. Pity the city planners have no concept of what could be achieved with a thought out plan and which would bring people in to this much neglected area of Dublin. I doubt any other planning authority would have allowed the destruction of such historic buildings from the “dutch billy houses” , the markets etc,. If this street were anywhere else, I think so much more effort would be put in to developing it as an upmarket , living and recreational area.
@Eileen Kelly: 100% Eileen, The redevelopment and employment are great but that image of the proposed hotel….well, it’s kinda ‘meh’ being honest
@Frank Mc Carthy: my god what a bluffer you are – your comment below “really great to see Harry Crosbie getting permission to build this much needed hotel”
@Kevin Kerr: ?? Delighted to see this gentleman getting permission to build needed hotel ./ NOT too keen on the look of the proposed hotel ( if it’s like the picture)— surely a 1st year architecture student in UCC could come up with something more attractive?
@Frank Mc Carthy: ah right yea, so you’re delighted for Harry that he got his planning permission, but you agree 100% that the building itself is “just awful”. Of course, these two statements were made to different people. As I said, you’re a bluffer
@Kevin Kerr: surely it’ll look a wee bit more appealing/ attractive than what’s in the picture— it’s 2024, we can surely do better than a ‘box’ ?
@Frank Mc Carthy: ah now come on, we’re not actually debating the merits of the application here (for the record, I think it’s an eyesore), it’s you being a troll and talking out both sides of your mouth
Anything modern is going to be an eyesore. We need to to build more victorian red bricked terraced housing.
Nobody says anything about bungalowitis. McMansions …
Lost cause.
@Eileen Kelly: I’d imagine Merrion Square Conservation Quarter would have something a lot nicer. Whereas Liberties, meh. Cork Street is more like the m50 nowadays. It’s all gone downhill since the Roads Windening Commission. Steamrolled. Unfortunately.
@Frank Mc Carthy: SketchUp warehouse model. Free download. Like the EXO building was. I’m sorry to say it but, AI could design a lot better.
@Eileen Kelly: historic ?
@Eileen Kelly: Too true Eileen… The amount of hotels that have popped up in North Inner City Dublin too is kind of gross. Thinking of Dominic Street, Parnell Street and Liffey Street. Not exactly the ultimate tourist destinations to be fair not being a snob.
Hopefully it will not get repurposed
@Oh Mammy: hey William the pervy pervert
@D. Peado: it was more fun thinking you jumped off a cliff in the aftermath of Madame Predidents humiliating defeat.
@Oh Mammy: why do you keep shying away from your pedo conviction?
Not a great advertisement for newly elected SF TD Marie Devine.
@Frank Mc Carthy:
90% of Sinn Fein TDs are forbidden from given interviews or releasing social media posts by the Elders.
You can see why.
@H Woo: she’ll probably ger ‘invited’ to an interview after this shambles, lol
@H Woo: Ha ha, more rubbish from the usual
I have no issue with the modernisation of the city but I’m sick of god awful eyesores like this getting planning permission. It’s just so ugly
@Mark Nolan: they’re like giant cardboard boxes. Definitely not in keeping with the local surroundings.
Thomas street was proposed by Dublin City council and an taisce to be an ACA(architectural conservation area), it’s one of the few historic streets left in the capital, and among other things includes the oldest house in the city, number 130. This being good old Ireland though, everything is for sale. Developers paradise. At the very least build housing, but here we are with another hotel.
Hahaha sinners TDs incompetentcy highlighted here. “The rules need to be revised” to suit me and my agenda. Comical toys out of the pram stuff.
@Tomas O sullivan: kinda worse than that….’the rules need to be revised ‘ because I fxxded up big time & want another bite of the cherry
@Frank Mc Carthy: nah, she accepts that it was a stupid mistake and that she has lost this particular battle – her hope for a rule change relates to any future appeals, not this particular one. That cherry you refer to has been eaten
@Kevin Kerr: like yourself on that article about the beautiful school in Inchicore winning the architectural award, a simple apology & ‘hands up’ would have sufficed.
Anyhow really great to see Harry Crosbie getting permission to build this much needed hotel & all the employment that creates
@Tomas O sullivan:
Rules need to be dumbed down more like.
@Frank Mc Carthy: arguable, but that’s not what you said originally, far from it. As for the application itself, I don’t think a hotel is a priority for this particular community
@Kevin Kerr: & What does the puppet master brenny say?
@Frank Mc Carthy: give it up Frank/Kevvy – you’re a fraud
@Kevin Kerr: seriously, does the 24/7 trolling satisfy you in some kinda way?
@H Woo: A bit like you?
@Frank Mc Carthy: it satisfies you anyway.
The area is zombie land and in need of a lot of redevelopment to attract in people that would be role modals for the local kids, Employed people that will keep shops and restaurants open, people with skills to be of benifits to the local area. For to long the area has being infested with inafective hard left wasters. sorry I mean community activists, not interested in improving the lot of the locals just brainwashing them with victimhood and dispare.
Having said that the proposed hotel is just another ugly red brick building, needs a modern outer cladding.
Will end up as a wet hostel or asylum seeker accommodation at some point. Harry makes money regardless but the locals take the pain. No locals demonstrating or putting up objections though, do they not care at all?
@Mr “JonnieBoy” Johnson: you don’t know what your talking about .evey second shop on meath street had posters in the shop windows demonstrating about this hotel.
An here, Thomas St is not derelict when Vicar St is closed – Crosbie is completely waffling.
It’s a pity the design of the hotel is so austere looking. A lot of buildings like that going up on the area.
Ffs there’s enough hotels its houses that we need janey mack!!!!
What’s more of an eyesore are all of Maire Devine’s election posters still zip tied to every lamppost all along the length of Thomas St and James’ St and surrounds….a week after the election…when most others have taken theirs down.
If Cole Devine is so concerned about how the area looks…well ‘nuff said..
@UK Hurling Bloke: *Cllr
Another ugly, unimaginative squat box to pollute the Dublin urban environment. Do architects in this county have imagination bypasses to qualify?
Harry Crosbie has done the city proud to date and I cannot see him doing anything but building a great addition to the City
@Stellahickey27@icloud.com: Spot on comment!
Dublin needs to be Bulldozed and started again.
Another hotel. Ffs. When will it end
SO, it was a lone wolf SF councillor who objected , wonder how many more of them do this, they have form too.
And her to admit her mistake was stupid perhaps adds credibility to the election results?
@Paul O’Mahoney: wha?
@Pork Hunt: You still haven’t learnt to spell but you’re getting closer….well done
Something with more character and tradition would be more appropriate for Dublin. They look to towns in the uk, they have buildings that are in keeping with the surroundings. They don’t just fire up some prefab style build in amongst old style streets and buildings. We on the other hand always run with overpriced cheap crap!
Oh that is the funniest article I have read here in tears. Back to school for the poor objector and good luck Harry with the project!!!!!
Will the theatre be incorporated into the new development ?
Let’s green-light a brown, brutalist, eyesore of a building that looks like a shoebox, that is completely out of keeping with the surrounding area and visually clashes with a grey old church nearby. Dublin is full of such ugly buildings. Why can we not do new buildings and infrastructural projects like other modern European countries? Is it our poor, agricultural background? Or just plain old incompetence?
Great to see the total incompetence of this Sinn Fein TD totally ignored in favour of focusing on the architectural merits or demerits. Bufoon.
Well done Harry Crosbie for in a small way dragging the kip of an area in to the 21st century, Dublin is the most run down shit hole so called city in Europe, North Korea has better Infrastructure, a minority of the usual stupid objectors always trying to block badly needed modernization, no wonder 70.000 thousand young people emigrate from this country each year to countries with modern cities and 21st century infrastructure, eg an underground rail system that is built no 40years talking about it being built
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