Aer Lingus has revised its flight schedule for Friday of next week in an effort to minimise the impact of planned strike action by staff.
Trade union Siptu is planning a four- hour work stoppage at Dublin, Cork and Shannon Airports from 5am to 9am on Friday in advance of the busy St Patrick's weekend.
The strike follows the breakdown of talks between Aer Lingus and union representatives aimed at defusing a row over workers’ pensions.
In order to minimise the impact on its customers, Aer Lingus said today it had hired additional aircraft, retimed flights, rebooked customers on other carriers and cancelled some flights from Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports.
The carrier advised people booked to travel during the period of industrial action to check the status of their flights on the company’s website.
Customers whose flights have been cancelled or retimed by over three hours can change their flight free of charge or apply for a refund, the airline said.
For people travelling on Aer Lingus from North America on Thursday, flights have been retimed in order to avoid the period of industrial action.
Aer Lingus said customers affected by the changes have been notified by SMS and email.
The airline apologised to customers for the uncertainty and inconvenience “this unnecessary industrial action by Siptu” has caused.
“We will do everything possible to minimise the disruption and will communicate any further changes to customers via email, SMS, social media and broadcast media,” it added.
Fianna Fáil's Timmy Dooley called on Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar to intervene directly in the ongoing dispute.
He said the planned strike action had the potential to cause travel chaos for the thousands of visitors coming to Ireland for the St Patrick's festivities.
“The action could damage the reputation of the Irish tourism industry, at a time when the country should be focussed on putting its best foot forward,” he said.
Siptu is participating with the four-person expert panel put together to try and resolve the dispute, but continues to refuse to call off the planned action.
“ Time is running out and the minister needs to step up and intervene personally to make sure the strike is averted,” Mr Dooley said.
A total of 240,000 people are due to visit Dublin and Cork for the national holiday, a key weekend for the country’s tourism industry.
Siptu’s strike notice makes it clear that the March 14th stoppage will be followed with further action.
