Aer Lingus Flight Crew Industrial relations thread 2024

By the same token, does anyone know if Level flight deck crews are Iberia pilots or are they on a separate contract completely?

When should we expect to hear about next weeks flights? Would it get posted on website first. Just want to make sure I’m on the ball in event of cancellation. Due to fly next Thursday and have fingers crossed. At least there can’t be a strike as less than 7 days.

You'll get an email from EI if your flight is impacted by work to rule and it'll be updated on the site https://www.aerlingus.com/support/disrupted-flights/ialpa-industrial-action/

see attached chart from 2023 financials. EI operating margin slightly lower than BA but much lower than IB.

BA still had not reintroduced significant routes so unclear whether that had a negative effect on its operating margin. Realistically, EI is not competing with BA for investment for lots of reasons. However, to the extent that it is competing with IB or Vueling or Level, it’s not keeping pace at this stage.

Thanks for a considered response. My impression of this dispute is that it is more feisty than many and respect from both sides is lacking. I also think that Aer Lingus is not the brand it was nor does it have the same brand loyalty - 99% of this is down to management decisions. An example for me was a cancelled flight (at the gate) and compensation which was like pulling teeth (to the extent I gave up) compared to a delayed flight with Ryanair where it was processed with hours. I also think this strike has hit a nerve with many people and the same sympathy that was with people 10 years ago is not there now (maybe just my impression).

Yep, i have been on to customer service about missing points/miles at least half a dozen times

Prior to Covid, EI was consistently at or near the top of IAG’s performance tables. It has been the slowest to recover largely due to the glacial speed with which Covid restrictions were relaxed in Ireland in 2021 onwards. The airline has also been critically under-resourced and has not met the available demand over the last couple of years - consider the €25M+ spent on hire-ins last summer owing to a lack of staff, among other elements of poor management. In fact, if you simply subtracted that €25M from operating costs, EI would’ve had a higher margin than BA.

Regardless, EI was successful enough in 2023 that the group saw fit to reward EI’s executives with a 155% increase in bonuses. If they were profitable enough for that, then they’re also profitable enough to maintain their employees’ spending power year-on-year. If they aren’t profitable enough to do that (a bare flippin’ minimum as far as I’m concerned) then they’ve no business considering themselves ‘successful’ and therefore no business paying such bonuses. Pick one. They can’t have it both ways.

I'm flying Sat 13th and the same flight is cancelled for tomorrow & next week.

I'm tempted to book a different one with Ryanair, the prices have already gone up by about 10% since this morning.

If I do book and my Aer Lingus flight goes I'll be raging at Aer Lingus and won't ever fly with them again if I can help it.

Sorry I should have said. Yes this is the 11.05 from Dublin

Both sides have accepted an invitation to the labour court on Monday

Let's hope it gets sorted but I say it's very unlikely it will

I hope the unions don't over play their hand with this,they may poke the bear into unintended consequences they never envisaged.

I couldn’t find it anywhere but does anyone know if IAG owned Level has pilots who are on Iberia contracts or are they separate completely?

The premise of that article is that IAG are willing to write down Aer Lingus which doesn't make sense because it is a growing profitable airline. Corporations just don't think like that, especially public ones like IAG. It also presupposes that there are another group of pilots out there that are willing and able to be based out of Ireland for materially lower cost than the current group of Aer Lingus pilots. There is a global pilot shortage and they all seem to be getting pay increases so I'm not sure that stands up either. Ireland is an expensive place to live so even if you could get pilots from somewhere they would still have to be paid pretty well. Also Aer Lingus has a solid brand proposition so going down the yellow pack route does not make strategic sense because they would be eaten alive by Ryanair and EasyJet. A lot of rhetoric in this dispute but there definitely should be a middle ground that gives the pilots a pay bump and allows the company to continue growing and making a decent return for IAG.