More unrest in Aer Lingus

Our man in Havana

The thing is all this talk of strikes is damaging the airlines reputation. I am personally afraid to book a trip to america with them because of the threat of a strike. That is €1500 lost to BA that would have been spent with aer lingus.

I just not prepared to take a risk on something that big.

PhoenixRising

Bond-007 wrote: »

I just not prepared to take a risk on something that big.

Some food for thought before you go and book BA..

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30400-1308658,00.html

This dispute has still not been resolved.

Tenger

Muggy Dev wrote: »

Gives you a great insight into the current mindset of the EI board though.

Imagine no one spottting the obvious and potentially calamatous public relations disaster that awaited a stubourn refusal to honour their commitments.With load factors on the Atlantic around the seventy mark it would have cost them nothing to have let those passangers travel.

Those guys have been under siege for so long, their´s is a bunker mentality.

To shine a bit of light into this absolute PR fiasco for EI:

When the mistake was discovered the Customer Relations Department said that the tickets should be honoured and EI should just take the hit. However the EI legal team when asked stated that EI did not have to hoour the bookinfs. So the management followed the legal advice. This comes from a reliable source whose husband is in the Customer relations department. This is the same razor sharp legal team that 1) Needed advice on how to deal with the Ryanair takeover bid after gearing up for privatisation over 2-3 years and 2) Told Mannion not to speak Irish on flights out of Belfast.

I am embarassed to work for EI after such a complete cock-up both operationally and in PR terms. In real terms those physical seats may have remained empty on those flights so it wasn't as if EI was losing the EUR1750 per seat,they were losing the possibility of gaining it.

Personally I think they could have turned it around by admitting the mistake but honouring the bookings. Then they announce that all summer to celebrate 50 years of transatlantic flying each flight would have 5 seats at EUR5 (In economy however) Thats only 70-90 seats a day(counting east and west bound flights),not a problem considering loads are not near 100% recently. The increased traffic and subsequent bookings would have allowed them to re-coup their 'losses' on the 300-500 J class seats. "Aer Lingus,Quality long-haul low-fares,Enjoy Your Flight"

And in relation to the statement the no heads will roll. I think we see a bit of the old Civil Servant attitude her. If I or my crew cause a flight to be delayed by anything over 5 mins without a valid reason I get a call within 2 days to account for my actions. So its very annoying to hear no=one will get reprimanded over the tickets 'mistake'. I am not sure but would assume that putting such offers live on the site would require more than just an accident keystroke and may have another person to confirm/check it before going live.

In addition I feel any staff member who booked these fares while at work in head office on an EI computer shouldn't have their ticket honoured. Does the website keep a record of IP addresses? It would be interesting to see when the staff booked the fares and when the problem was reported up the chain.Wouldn't it be strange if the entire IT section 'managed' to book the seats................

And I hope that it shows the mentality of the current management team in EI. While there are two sides fighting in recent months this mentality has greatly contibuted to the IR problems. Even when the unions have presented 80-90% of the cost savings demanded (Which the clerical/ground staff did. 9.6M out of the demanded 10.5M) the company refused to compromise.

FlutterinBantam

You have made some very good points there indeed,however I fail to understand the "management mentality" bit.

Personally I would be more concerned about the mentality of the staff who on learning of the mistake, apparently rang all their friends to avail of the "offer" thus denying the company they work for, the revenue which should accrue from the sale of those seats.

I don't know if it is me or not ,but the poisonous atmosphere which seems to pervade thru Aer Lingus,is unrivaled in any company I have ever dealt with.

I have vast experience in business and commerce and yet cannot understand the anger in a workforce that by average standards, is certainly not underpaid or overworked,and have conditions which many others don't have.
Its not as if there have been forced redundancies,or job losses.
There is no great skill or qualifications required for the vast majority of the tasks involved.

To me it smacks very much of the HSE situation in so far as everyone seems to think that their particular section is doing all the work and the rest not pulling their weight,and that everything is Managements fault,with no account of the stuff that is happening all around them, and globally.

Wake up call need rapido.

Tenger

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

You have made some very good points there indeed,however I fail to understand the "management mentality" bit.

Personally I would be more concerned about the mentality of the staff who on learning of the mistake, apparently rang all their friends to avail of the "offer" thus denying the company they work for, the revenue which should accrue from the sale of those seats.

.................everyone seems to think that their particular section is doing all the work and the rest not pulling their weight,and that everything is Managements fault,with no account of the stuff that is happening all around them, and globally.

My second last paragraph will show my opinion on staff who availed of those offers. If i booked them at home on my PC I am a private citizen but for staff to do so while at an EI PC before alerting someone is bang out of order and I feel they should be reprimanded.

In terms of the EI "management mentality': I agree that both sides are generally to blame in any IR dispute and this is so in the EI situation. However recently EI have shown no willingness to concede anything to the employees.
As I stated the ground unions had delivered a plan to save 9.6M annually after months of talks,the company refused this offer and demanded a further .9M savings. Could the company not have said "It not what we want but it nearly there so lets shake hands" If they had done 3 months ago so we may have full agreement in EI today.

Please note that the ground unions delivered the plan not management.

Whereas in 2003 Willie Walsh published a plan detailing staff reductions and sections merges over the course of 3 years. Each staff member could clearly see the there was a plan and how it would change their section. From this plan the changes to work practises arose. Currently EI staff are being told "we need EUR 20M in savings,no questions please" Walsh also met regularly with staff to judge the mood and answer questions personally,Mannion has had 3 briefings all in Head Office with managers to answer questions.

Historically EI have shown an unwillingness to give info to their staff. I believe that if the compnay want change they should present the situation clearly to the staff. "Lads we facing turbulence,unfortunately we all need to make sarcrifices. We need your help on this." at the same time inform the staff what what you plan to do. tell them you want more aircraft to service more routes,tell them you want pax to want to fly with us.

I may be naive but I believe that if EI management made the effort to actually talk to the staff,to bring them onside the IR issues would be ironed out quicker. I'm not saying that IR issues will not cause problems or disappear,but maybe they would be easier to solve and less disruptive to the running of the company and to pax satisfaction.

For instance EI have not given staff any info on the fleet order or timtable for expansion apart from printouts of press releases(obviously they can't give details but a hint to get the staff onside) In reality many staff learn about thing in EI through the papers rather than internal memos/notices.

I am aware of the global aviation situation. I concede that many of my colleagues may not know or refuse to acknowledge it. However I would like to be seen as part of the solution to dealing with the problem rather than part of the problem. And to be honest some staff are part of the problem,they do not see that change is needed. Howevr change cannot be so drastic as to destroy your work satisfaction,one of the things that always stood out for EI was that they had loyal workers who enjoyed looking after their passenger (the real wage providers)

As an example of the "managment mentality" The Cabin Crew section got a new manager last Sep or Oct. I have yet to see him in the cabin crew building whereas all previous managers had offices there. The vast majority of crew have never heard of him or didn't know he was appointed. He has published 3 notices, one to introduce himself,one to admonish punctuality and another to introduce a new gimmick to generate more revenue from customer.

Sorry for the rambling post..................

FlutterinBantam

I can see from your post that you care and have a lot of pride in what you do.

Unfortunately a sizeable percentage of your colleagues seem to live in cloud cuckoo land regarding the outside world and commercial realities.

While I cannot condone sweatshops,I sincerely believe that a culture has built up in Aer Lingus that commercial reality and mores do not apply to them.

Management have their faults of course, but there is a rump of people in Aer Lingus who want no change,no progress,just same old outdated outmoded work practices and modus operandi that existed in the 80's and 90's .

Don't let the tail wag the dog for all your sakes.

FlutterinBantam

Hmmm .. I hear that in about two weeks these changes to work practices and rosters will be implemented.

Could stir up the auld war horses,though I think that even they know the writing is on the wall an taking a major stand is not an option.

Seems like the decks are loaded:cool:

Muggy Dev

...seems not Flutter.

http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0515/aerlingus.html

Tenger

Muggy Dev wrote: »

...seems not Flutter.

It seems common sense from both sides has prevailed.

Some people may be happy to hear that a lot of EI are not happy with SIPTU after this. They may have voted NO to the work changes but did not want that to mean a Yes to strike action which is how SIPTU interpretated it. And the end of the strange SIPTU voting policy can only be a good thing. Previously you had section voting on changes that did not have any real impact on them but a big impact on other sections.

Oilrig

EI Management need to grow balls and wear them IMHO.

"legal" and other "advisor's" are just that, ie inputs to management making a decision.

The recent fiasco over the US seats is worrying, who's (really) making the decisions? How confident are they in their own leadership?

Methinks Mannion et al need to grab their charge by the neck and show some leadership. Dark times ahead if he continues on his current path IMHO.

Slate WW all you want but he got the job done.

...Alitalia, there but the grace of God are we, comes to mind.

FlutterinBantam

Couldn't disagree with those sentiments.

Looks like "The Alamo" is not too far up the road.

Tenger

Oilrig wrote: »

Methinks Mannion et al need to grab their charge by the neck and show some leadership. Dark times ahead if he continues on his current path IMHO.

Slate WW all you want but he got the job done.

Agree here. Mannion is not a leader,he is a place sitter. (His leadership is very similar to that of G.W. Bush.) He makes pronouncements and does press conferences but he leaves the actual nuts and bolts to his department heads/advisors. Hence he keeps saying he "has faith in the team we have built up" and instead of getting informed and involving himself, he shuffles the managment positions "to strengthen the team"
I'm not a business person but to me he is more of a Chairman of the Board than a CEO. He is a delegater. He doesn't know the details himself,that is left to others. This is where EI are falling down. As Oilrig states they need strong centralised leadership like they had under WW.