A Labour Court hearing on the ongoing pilots pay dispute at Aer Lingus has concluded.
Representatives from Aer Lingus and the Irish Airline Pilots Association (IALPA) attended the meeting which began at 2.30pm and concluded just before 6pm.
The Labour Court will now consider the matter and issue a recommendation at a future time.
Earlier, Aer Lingus announced a further 76 flight cancellations between next Monday and Wednesday as result of the industrial action by pilots.
This comes on top of 392 cancellations resulting from a strike on Saturday and an ongoing work-to-rule since last Wednesday.
Arriving at the Labour Court for the hearing, Aer Lingus Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Donal Moriarty said he was hopeful that a resolution could be found, describing the hearing as a very important step in the process.
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He rejected claims by IALPA that the airline has not moved its position, which has seen the company request flexibility and productivity changes in exchange for any pay increases beyond the 12.25% already agreed with other groups of workers at Aer Lingus.
“We explored with the court various things that could be done to enable a solution to the dispute and we presented those to the court on Monday, and indeed, we submitted those details to the court yesterday,” Mr Moriarty said.
“They (the changes) include increasing productivity and flexibility to enable our operation to work more efficiently and their impact on individual pilots is actually very minimal.”
“It’s to provide an overall level of productivity and flexibility that can enable the airline to run more efficiently for its customers,” he added.
Arriving at the Labour Court, IALPA President Captain Mark Tighe said profitable companies which do not protect staff from the effects of inflation impoverish their employees.
“That will happen from the lowest employees up, as they slide off the bottom one-by-one and what we ask the Labour Court to consider as we go forward, is the profitable nature of the company and how a reasonable claim is to protect us all from inflation,” Capt Tighe said.
He said that IALPA will consider escalating industrial action if it deems it necessary and that once the Labour Court has issued its recommendation on the dispute, there will probably be a ballot of members on whether to accept or reject the court’s decision.
“If the Labour Court is unable to provide a recommendation, which protects employees, us in this particular situation, from the degradations of inflation, then we will simply have to stand our ground against our employer and hope that people understand that this is not just about us,” Capt Tighe said.
The Labour Court met with the two sides for more than eight hours on Monday before informing the parties that it would exercise its right to intervene in the dispute under the Industrial Relations Act.
Management and IALPA lodged written submissions with the court yesterday and made presentations at today’s hearing.
The Labour Court has asked that there be no escalation of the dispute, but the current work-to-rule by IALPA members is remaining in place.
On Saturday, Aer Lingus pilots, who are members of IALPA, took part in an eight-hour strike.
The pilots are seeking a pay rise of up to 24% to take account of inflation since their last wage increase in 2019.
However, Aer Lingus is seeking agreement on productivity and flexibility in return for any pay increases that go beyond the 12.25% agreed with other groups of workers at the company.
On Thursday, management and union representatives met face to face for five hours, but the talks broke down without agreement.
IALPA said it had offered to move from its 24% pay demand but accused the company of failing to reciprocate.
On Friday, the Labour Court issued a fresh invitation to the two parties to attend Monday’s meeting.
The development saw IALPA back down from a plan to escalate the industrial action.
