Aer Lingus Flight Crew Industrial relations thread 2024

In person ballot results are in, pretty unanimous in favour of action as expected

https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0617/1455044-aer-lingus-pilots-ballot/

I concur. If you knew the date, then only those people are miserable but at present, anyone travelling in the next 3 weeks are collectively miserable and hence in no way supportive.

I'm curious, at what salary figure exactly do you think workers no longer have the right to negotiate for pay rises? And how much do you think it's acceptable to have your real pay eroded by inflation before you do something and demand an improvement? Would you be happier if only first officers went on strike, or even newly minted captains who haven't breached the 200k barrier yet?

I think it's nuts that the pilots are being painted as the greedy ones when the management board have awarded themselves 100%+ increases in renumeration over the last couple of years while refusing to meaningfully negotiate with the worker group who are literally responsible for keeping the whole show running safely and efficiently

Labour court recommendations aren't binding, and this one didn't address half of the pilots concerns including the attempt to split the workforce by putting new pilots on an inferior contract.

Nobody wants to cause disruption or see the average holidaymaker lose out but at the end of the day the workers have exhausted all other options

And I fail to see how the average salary has anything to do with it. The average worker doesn't need to invest 100k to enter their industry, the average worker doesn't have responsibility for hundreds of lives on a daily basis, the average worker doesn't live with the risk of a minor medical issue ending their career at any moment. Pilots are well paid but that's for a good reason, it's an incredibly highly skilled job that has almost zero tolerance for mistakes. That's without going into the unsociable hours and how utterly exhausting it can be...

common sense? We all come at this from our own perspectives. Outside public service and entities which derive therefrom (such as a privatised formerly-state owned airline), there is no concept of a pay rise simply for racking up a further year of service. Accordingly, from the perspective of those who do not work in those areas, an incremental increase in pay is a pay rise. Was the pay higher afterwards but the role and responsibilities had not changed? If yes the. That would commonly be regarded as a pay rise. Understandably, if your experience is of that being the norm the. You don’t see it as a pay rise but outside the bubble you are in, that is precisely what it is.

Its a bit of a scummy thing to do though in all fairness. Many who voted will be earning higher than those who will be impacted. Families who have saved hard to be able to afford a holiday. To schedule strike action during the peak summer months has one aim only and its to hold aer lingus to ransom and also cause hardship to normal men and women amd children.

Im a public servant and regardless of pension levies or paycuts absolutely never back strike action. Its always the poorest in society that will be affected. Poor form from Aer lingus flight crew.

Thanks, thought I was imagining things. Sounds like they're going to hit hard and fast and I suppose who can blame them.

Hopefully if the flight crew decide to ruin peoples plans then Aer lingus management will let them picket away.

Strikes are bitter. Its a bitter move this time of year to strike.

so that is your perspective. The pilots will form a small part of the workforce of any airline. Unfortunately success for them will mean the opposite for you. Except for those in regulated roles (engineers, mechanics etc), airline staff don’t have high barriers to entry. As a result, success for the pilots will absorb additional costs which could otherwise have been spread over other airline staff who are more replaceable than pilots (harsh but true).

Out of the hands of Dublin management. iAG will not give in as it would encourager les autres. The pilots won’t win or to the extent that they don’t will be as a result of disproportionate damage.

To be fair, that was a General Strike in France, ie ALL Civil Service Unions were on strike.

Lot of factors in it from an IAG angle. Aer Lingus mgmt have indeed already offered to match that figure but as part of the agreement they are looking for improvements in productivity and flexibility beyond what the pilot community/IALPA are willing to accept. IAG as major stakeholders probably need to see some improvement in this productivity to help justify the increase in the cost base.

Summer rosters, as was pointed out here to myself before, are fairly grueling already and these productivity and flexibility "improvements" have never been definitively outlined.

See my previous post. Plus, other groups have already accepted pay increases that they were happy with. That's their prerogative, as it is the pilots to seek what they are asking for.

€5 average. Lower fares wouldn't have as much of an increase.

Never thought I'd say this but 'thank **** I'm travelling with Ryanair this summer'

The anxiety holiday goers must be going through over this. Not nice esp with the price of things

True, and an interesting way of looking at it. I think what the original poster did to work it out is divide 40m by total passengers carried in 2023 (10.7m) to get approx €3.75 extra per passenger.

Changes the maths a bit, €15 of what every passenger paid goes to pilot salaries. So it's not €15 out of every fare because passenger fares aren't the only revenue at an airline. A lot of freight is carried which is very profitable. All the on board sales, WiFi etc all has a profit margin. Bottom line I suppose is that pilots are expensive!