BOTH sides in the Aer Lingus pilots' dispute meet this morning at the Labour Court to try to avert tomorrow's strike. However the Irish Air Line Pilots' Association (IALPA) has not lifted its threat of industrial action and Aer Lingus has cancelled some of tomorrow's scheduled flights.
The cancellations affect routes where the return flights would take place after the strike comes into effect at midnight tomorrow. Instead, Aer Lingus will be using leased aircraft to operate the scheduled timetable and ensure that aircraft, cabin crews and passengers depending on return flights in the early hours of Monday morning are not stranded.
Details of the changes are published in today's newspapers and a spokesman for Aer Lingus said that changes in schedules would be advertised in advance on a daily basis.
The fact that the Labour Court is convening a hearing at 10 a.m. today provides the first glimmer of hope that a strike can be avoided. The court acted after its chairwoman, Ms Evelyn Owens, consulted the chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission, Mr Kieran Mulvey, yesterday.
The two sides have been called together under Section 26.5 of the Industrial Relations Act. This is a rarely-used power which allows the court to investigate major disputes in the public interest.
It is understood the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) had been willing to arrange conciliation meetings for Aer Lingus and the IALPA, but no basis for meaningful discussions could be established.
However, both sides have said they will attend today's court hearing. The court's intervention has been widely welcomed.
Mr Paul O'Sullivan of SIPTU, the largest union in Aer Lingus, said the intervention was in line with the call on Thursday by the Aer Lingus group of unions for the Labour Court or the LRC to step in. "In view of the impact the dispute would have on our members, we would hope the Labour Court intervention will be successful over the weekend", he said.
Announcing its acceptance of the invitation, the Aer Lingus general manager - airline personnel, Ms Maria Kelly, said the company "has always maintained that the dispute can be resolved through negotiation." The company also called on IALPA to withdraw its strike notice in the interests of Aer Lingus customers.
Normally unions defer industrial action when the Labour court invites them to a hearing under Section 26.5, but IALPA has decided to leave the strike notice in place. Explaining its stance, the chairman of the IALPA pilots' group in Aer Lingus, Mr Dermot Rafferty, said that "IALPA is not hopeful that even this mechanism will resolve the issue".
Aer Lingus had given incorrect information to the court in a recent cabin crew dispute and refused to honour the pay award of the pilot pay review tribunal, which was evidence that the company did not take third party arbitration seriously, he said.
IALPA's position will disappoint the remainder of Aer Lingus's 6,000 employees who face the prospect of large scale lay-offs if the strike goes ahead.
It is possible the IALPA will decide to suspend strike action after today's hearing, but this is unlikely unless there is a firm offer from the company or a settlement formula from the court that would ensure pilots received a substantial element of their pay award in the near future.
The Fianna Fail spokesman on transport, Mr Seamus Brennan, met IALPA representatives yesterday. Later he called on both sides to avoid a strike.
"Given that this dispute will cost Aer Lingus in the region of £14 million a week in lost turnover, a basis for settlement has to exist, especially since the pilots claim that to settle their initial demand will cost just £200,000 for 1996," he said.
"A long drawn-out dispute would have disastrous consequences for business, tourism and the travelling public.
He called for a review of industrial relations at Aer Lingus and said the "Labour Court intervention represents a last chance to avert chaos".