Aer Lingus Flight Crew Industrial relations thread 2024

Captain_Crash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122430270#Comment_122430270

I dunno, I’m just quoting what the actual law is around it, maybe there’s a contract stipulation which is enough to be considered notice 🤷🏻‍♂️

Marcusm

I wonder who does EI’s payroll and are they up to speed. There was a time when Aer Lingus provided payroll services to companies as a service - including the country’s leading accounting firms. Nowadays it might likely have been outsourced and some of those are (bizarrely) not always au fait with the law.

Tenger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122430270#Comment_122430270

I've had the same happen to me (quite a long time ago)

Anyone who was supposed to work the day of the actual strike had a days pay deducted.
But anyone who wasnt due to work that day wasnt affected.
Its so long ago that I dont know if there was a communication about it before the payday involved.

1500 for a single day seems quite a lot. The company can only claim deduction for the day of the strike, June 29th.
Any losses incurred outside that are part of the IR process/fallout. They will be included in the EI financial results as "extraordinary costs". They cannot be recouped from the staff themselves.

faceman

As predicted…

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/aer-lingus-trade-unions-to-meet-to-discuss-implications-of-recent-pay-increase-given-to-pilots-1656752.html

Gael23

This isnt over yet

Tenger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122451850#Comment_122451850

The threat of imminent strike is.
The Flight crew need to hammer out and sign their agreement.
The other groups already did, they are merely exploring part of their existing agreement.

Brendan Bendar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122453607#Comment_122453607

Bit of Sabre rattling Mr Tee, that’s how I would see it.

sherology

Strike cost €55m+. TATL under pressure by US majors. Weaker routes to be reviewed/cut. Op-profit reduced regardless of strike - there's actually a lot of negative results coming in in the airline industry - and changes to US ULCCs as they try to improve their PaxEx offerings - free changes, assigned seating, different seat types and spacing throughout cabins. Hope Europe follows.

IAG pulling out of Air Europa purchase (stupid decision away back when it was mooted - and price - even the new price - so that's good - it'll disappear on it's own in time). Sadly, I think there's an exit price for IAG (update - €50m termination fee - jaysus - what clowns).

As I thought, EI will shrink a bit and refocus on making profit with higher costs - all costs are much higher.

Would be nice if they refocused on differentiating their offerings throughout the cabin from the LCC competition - AerClub (biz seat), AerSpace (+leg room/padded ecom seat), AerExplorer (slimline seat). Why pay more when you get nothing more (and often less).

Anywho... Them's the numbers.

Jamie2k9

https://www.flightglobal.com/airlines/aer-lingus-re-engaging-with-iag-management-on-a321xlr-after-pilot-deal/159456.article?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=Sendible&utm_campaign=RSS

Comments on the productivity secured with the deal by CEO.

Tenger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122457733#Comment_122457733

The arguement was that they lost the first 2 based on "lack of future cost stability" (or words to that effect)
So now, with stability re-established, they can put forth an updated business plan for using those XLRs.

Caquas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122457733#Comment_122457733

A very interesting report providing detail from the Aer Lingus CEO Lynn Embleton on productivity arrangements which IALPA consistently denied and which none of the Irish media reported. She says

the deal agreed with pilots, which involves a pay rise of 17.75% and followed industrial action at the carrier, brings two pieces of “structural change” that should address the parent company’s previous concerns.

“The first one is a new pay scale, or cap on the pay scale that applies to all narrowbody flying,” she states.

“That not only gives us the confidence to look at more narrowbodies – XLRs across the Atlantic – but it also means we get more productivity for the pilots that are flying between Europe, so they can do European flights and then they can do transatlantic flights, and that productivity benefit is going to be very useful to us in the future.”

Furthermore, the deal brings productivity improvements by removing a “crew agreement” that gave pilots more time off in summer and shorter working days.

“It was something they asked for several years ago but it did come at quite a significant productivity cost,” Embleton says. “We put it at around 7% productivity.”

Aer Lingus can therefore look forward to “better unit costs” in the future, she insists.

Embleton further notes that the pilot agreement is a four-year one, rather than the usual three-year deal, bringing more certainty to the business.

These productivity gains will be explained to the other Aer Lingus unions who are now - of course! - about to demand pay rises in line with the pilots

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/aer-lingus-could-face-new-pay-claim-from-other-staff-after-deal-to-end-pilots-strike/a506087908.html

Tenger

To counter that statement by the CEO:

The payscale cap is only for shorthaul (narrowbody) Captains can transfer to the A330 fleet were there is no similar salary cap.

The 'Crew agreement' has been ended, but both parties have to re-engage to set up a replacement system. Thus, any productivity increase is a temporary gain.

Additionally, this change doesn't increase crew hours. And A320 pilots already work both European and T/A routes.

Certainly however, the 4 year period does give certainty to the company.

EI Execs can leverage this to unlock their A321XLRs.

Noxegon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122518117#Comment_122518117

Not trying to be inflamatory here, but it's genuinely hard for me to understand why the salary scale on an A330 is greater than that of an A320.

Yes, it's a bigger plane, but at the end of the day you're sitting at the pointy end of an Airbus product and doing the same job. Does the fact that there are a few more seats down the back really merit earning more money above and beyond what seniority would normally do?

lintdrummer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122520201#Comment_122520201

This fleet pay (effectively) is a new thing in EI, it was just brought in by the narrowbody cap in the LC recommendation. Prior to that, all pilots in Aer Lingus were on the same scale (barring new entrants post covid who were on a c. 10% lower scale).

It has nothing to do with a difference in the work being done and everything to do with the company trying to lower costs. The majority of pilots in EI are on the narrowbody fleet. By putting a pay cap on that cohort the Aer Lingus management can provide cost certainty to IAG going forward in their bid to regain the A321XLR.

The pilots were mostly not in favour of the narrowbody cap, but it was seen as a lesser evil than the lower B scale that new entrants were on and something that won't affect current pilots for a good few years yet.

Worth noting that most airlines have fleet pay, Aer Lingus was a bit of an outlier in that regard.