Aer Lingus Flight Crew Industrial relations thread 2024

That's one of the longest sentences I've ever read. I almost had to pause for breath!

industrial action might not necessarily have meant a strike as opposed to WTR.

Same in every union, everyone wants pay rise or whatever is being fought for but some don't like industrial action when it comes around. This (if true) is no different.

[personal reference removed-Tenger]

A 'strict work to rule' in an industrial dispute scenario is designed to cause problems for whatever company is involved.

Bulldust about advising the public about how "under resourced" the airline is proves how clueless you are .

Every concern and company operating today would eventually buckle if the workforce went on a "strict work to rule"

Promulgating the view that there should be stand byes for everything and not having these stand byes is proof of under resourcing is ridicoulus.

In an operational environment things will go wrong, some will be minor, some will be more serious.

In a cyclical and highly competitive industry, airlines cannot afford to have a large tranche of employees sitting around

in case something happens, co-operation is needed and a 'strict work to rule ' obviates that.

Yes, when bigger disruptions occur and there is no standby cover available the airline will hire in, that's how

it can afford to keep the cost base down and not have too much resources when the downturn season comes in.

[Mod edit]

"In a cyclical and highly competitive industry, airlines cannot afford to have a large tranche of employees sitting around"

This is very true.

But what is also true is the requirement for necessary goodwill from the workforce to operate in the flexible fashion to have that competitive edge.

The creation and maintenance of this goodwill is one of the primary tasks of the senior management team. It is obviously absent otherwise we would not be in the current position. So it was either never there or too much rope was taken.

Either is a management failure.

With the news of the CEO receiving more shares, I can only wonder if that PR re the shares was deliberately caused to raise the roof or just badly timed.

A case of you’ve only ever seen the one side of a union. When a staff member goes through a hard time with a company and needs support. That’s the stuff people don’t see or hear about the vast majority of time. When a company wants to cut staff. Good luck in getting a half decent package while the union will fight to keep as many jobs as possible and the unlucky ones get as much as possible from the company. Good luck on your own

It requires both sides to accept the recommendations

As it stands the current work to rule remains and there won't be an escalation until after the union members vote on the recommendation

If the union and EI accept we go back to normal, it won't be instant but a few days to position crews in the case of JFK and ORD

Is this is Izmir flight ? If so last Tuesday I believe was due to the crew being out of hours. While Saturday was likely due to the strike.

The latest cancelations for next week are already published for the work to rule.

Whatever the LC recommend will have to go to a vote with IALPA but it's unlikely to have any impact on flights already cancelled

If the court issued the recommendation today, IALPA would have to decide whether or not they are recommending that their members accept it. They would probably decide that pretty quickly. They would then have to ballot their members to decide whether or not the deal is accepted. This would most likely be an electronic vote, as the previous ballot on the interim LC recommendation was electronic. Aer Lingus only challenged the electronic ballot on industrial action because any company facing industrial action will understandably take any and all measures to attempt to subvert that action. I don't expect that they would challenge a ballot on the recommendation. Aer Lingus would also have to decide whether or not to accept this recommendation. They could decide quite quickly but may not announce their decision until they know the outcome of the IALPA ballot. They have done this before, waiting until IALPA have balloted against a motion and then announcing that they would have accepted it.

All of this is to say that even if the recommendation comes today, the process involved in accepting or rejecting it would likely take at least a week, during which time the work to rule would continue. I wouldn't expect further strike announcements until after the ballot and obviously only if the recommendation is rejected by IALPA. A minimum 7 days notice is still required for a strike so it would be at least 2 weeks before we would see another work stoppage.

Hopefully it doesn't come to that though and the LC can produce a recommendation that is palatable to both parties. The biggest problem for you at the moment is that Turkish destinations are some of the longest duties for flight crews on short haul and so are susceptible to crew going out of hours.

If that flight was being cancelled for the strike Aer Lingus would have told you already so, it will go ahead unless impacted by work to rule etc which cannot be predicted.

Off topic but by the way, I came back on that flight 3 weeks ago - check in was mental -get there 3 hours early - also, the check in staff adopted a ryanair approach to luggage size and weight - keep within your limits, there was no flexibility - may have changed but, it was only 3 weeks back and 2 flights per week so, not many cycles.

Dalaman is an expensive airport too!

More flights cancelled up till the 14th of July same time as the 3 aircraft that are leased in contract is till 14th of july probably be extended

Quite normal for most companies in the transport sphere I would suggest, who are experiencing a 'strict work to rule'.

Management merely trying to protect the schedule to minimise disruption

I'm not sure I would agree with "regularly" going out of hours unless you have some insider knowledge in which case better to state that - if that's the case (crew on a certain sector regularly going into discretion) a company needs to address it. The Max FDP (flight duty period) under EASA FTLs (flight time limitations) is 12h 15mins for a flight departing at that time in the afternoon. The flight departs at 14:50 and lands back into Dublin at 00:35. That's less than a 10hr sector, add an hour for beginning of duty. I'd be very surprised if that was the case.

Flight departs at 1340 with a report time of 1245. Scheduled arrival back in DUB is 2359 plus 20mins post flight duty - 0019. 11:34 total duty time assuming everything runs on schedule.