The unexpected yet entirely predictable impact of the ongoing industrial dispute at Aer Lingus crystallised over the weekend by the experience of one family who had their holiday plans thrown into disarray at they were standing at a departure gate in Dublin Airport waiting for a flight to Bordeaux to take off.
While the ongoing work-to-rule of pilots has led to dozens of flights being cancelled every day, Aer Lingus has at least been able to give most people advance warning while concentrating its cancellations on business routes to cities including London, Brussels and Frankfurt.
But the dispute means flights are vulnerable to cancellation with very little notice if pilots are unable or unwilling to fly extra hours as a result of the work-to-rule.
One of the passengers who fell victim to one such last-minute cancellation was Eoin Wickham who was travelling to France with his wife and three children over the weekend just past.
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“We dropped our bags, went through security and after a quick bit of shopping arrived at our gate to board our flight only to be told the flight had been cancelled,” he told The Irish Times.
He said that his four-year-old was told by Aer Lingus staff that “bad pilots” were to blame.
The family was asked to collect their bags and make their way to a check-in desk.
“While in the queue, we rang Aer Lingus to try to rebook to Bordeaux for the next day. We were told there was no availability on the flight the next day or the next with nothing available till Thursday, July 11th,” he said.
Reluctant to miss four days of a 14-day holiday they looked at availability to Paris.
They were booked into a flight to the French capital departing on Monday and “were left with a challenge to rebook our car hire and contact our accommodation that we wouldn’t be arriving until Tuesday, July 9th, around 4.30am,” he said.
Aer Lingus said that the “ongoing and disruptive nature of the [Irish Air Line Pilots’ Association] Ialpa industrial action, which extends beyond a ‘work to rule’, is unfortunately resulting in some last-minute flight cancellations. We know this is hugely stressful to our customers and is causing much anxiety and we apologise for this.”
A spokeswoman said that where flights are cancelled, its teams are “working quickly to rebook customers on the next available flight to their destination. As we’re in peak summer, the next available flight for this customer to Bordeaux was on July 9th and we note that this customer chose to fly to Paris a day earlier on July 8th”.
“Aer Lingus sincerely apologises to this customer for the disruption to their travel and holiday plans,” the statement concluded.
The next few days will be crucial in shaping the summer for hundreds of thousands of Aer Lingus passengers with the Labour Court on Monday recommending a 17.75 per cent pay increase for pilots being considered by both sides at present.
If the Labour Court decision wins the backing of both sides the industrial unrest will end.
If, however, Ialpa believes it does not go far enough towards meeting its initial pay claim of close to 24 per cent or if management believe it goes too far then the recommendation will be rejected.
In any event a ballot could take several days to complete and if the industrial dispute, which is currently limited to a work-to-rule, is upgraded to days of all out strikes, things will get much worse for travelling passengers.
Under industrial relation rules, the union will have to give management at least seven days notice of any action on top of the work-to-rule already in effect.
Based on a timeline if the Labour Court recommendation are voted on by Thursday evening, the earliest date for an all-out-strike would be Friday or Saturday, July 19th, and Sunday 20th which would be a disaster for both the airline and tens of thousands of holidaymakers.
The Irish Travel Agents Association (ITAA) has urged both parties to accept today’s Labour Court recommendation and put the customer at the centre of the agenda.
“We are asking both parties to accept the Labour Court’s recommendation. Disputes all end sooner or later – it is within their power to end it now,” said the ITAA chief executive Clare Dunne.
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