Aer Lingus management and pilots' union Ialpa are attending separate talks at the Labour Relations Commission today in an effort to avert industrial action which could cause widespread disruption.
The union, a branch of Impact, served notice of industrial action on the carrier on Monday as part of a dispute over rosters. Should it go ahead, the dispute could ground as many as 30,000 passengers a day from next Tuesday.
The talks got under way at 8.30am.
The union said that following a ballot of members, in which 87 per cent voted in favour of industrial action, pilots would not work on rostered free days or annual leave days and would report for duty one hour later than rostered.
Aer Lingus chief executive Christoph Mueller has said the planned industrial action could lead to cancellation of services from next week. He claimed the planned withdrawal of flexibility by pilots would “destroy our ability to operate a proper schedule”.
Impact, however, claims pilots’ rosters are overly onerous and that there are insufficient pilots in Aer Lingus to maintain the roster. It says they would end up working six days out of seven throughout the summer schedule.
Both parties confirmed yesterday they would attend talks, but neither would comment on what might emerge, or when.
There had been some correspondence between the company and the union prior to the intervention of the LRC in the matter.
In February, a dispute involving the rosters of Aer Lingus cabin crew members was resolved following a binding arbitration by the Labour Relations Commission.
Under that agreement, roster measures described by Impact as “anti-family” were removed.