Aer Lingus Pilots to Strike
 

OFFICIAL: Aer Lingus pilots on strike from midnight Tuesday next - mandatory notice precludes earlier action.

From the Irish Times (www.ireland.com)


Pilots to strike over Belfast move

Aer Lingus pilots are to strike for 48 hours next week, claiming that a move to the airline's new hub in Belfast will see them employed on less favourable terms and conditions than they have in Dublin.

In a statement this evening, the Irish Airline Pilots Association (IALPA) branch of the Impact trade union said 480 pilots in its membership will strike on Tuesday August 21 st and Wednesday 22 nd .

The move is likely to cause widespread disruption to transport in and out of Ireland if it goes ahead.

"The strike has been called in response to Aer Lingus proposals to employ pilots at its new Belfast base on pay and terms and conditions of employment that are less favourable than at the existing Aer Lingus base in Dublin," the statement said.

"The pilot positions were advertised on the airline's website today and the company has confirmed to the union that it does not intend to honour existing collective agreements for pilots based in Belfast."

Pilots met at Dublin Airport this evening to discuss the new terms and conditions.

IALPA president, Captain Evan Cullen said that the move by Aer Lingus was "a flagrant breach of its collective agreements and of solemn commitments made by the airline to its employees in advance of last year's stock market flotation".

In a statement he added: "We are not going to allow Aer Lingus treat its Belfast based pilots as 2nd class citizens who can be paid less and treated worse than their colleagues in Dublin. Aer Lingus has freely entered into collective agreements that cover all pilots employed by the airline and we just want the company to honour its commitments."

"We are not going to allow Aer Lingus treat its Belfast based pilots as 2nd class citizens who can be paid less and treated worse than their colleagues in Dublin."

A shame that the KLM pilots didn't have the same willpower in respect of their British (ex KLMuk) based pilots.
Best of luck to the Shamrock crews.

aerlingus strike
 

hi all ,first post ,support ye 100%
ps / it is tuesday at midnight as i m going to amsterdam tuesday morning from cork . up the rebel county

what Aer Lingus is trying to do is dis mantle the union.....dismantle set agreements they signed up to.....dismantle collective agreements they signed upto under due process......Mr Mannion is either very sharp or very stupid doing this.


It effects all of us in the industry as if AL push this thru say GOOD BYE to BALPA, IALPA and all pilot unions that represent their members.

IALPA have played within the scope of their remit, AL are just trying to sh"t all over them.....

From the outside looking in:

An airline is opening a new base in a different country with T&C's matching local rates.

The home base pilots are protesting that the new hires won't get the same T&C's as they do.

For the benefit of me and no doubt others reading this can someone explain what is actually the issue here? and what grounds the strike is going ahead on?

What's the story with FR for eg and their many bases, do they have similar T&C's ?

mini, it is exactly the FR model that is to be avoided. Pilots must not out bid each other in a race to the bottom. FR is the unhappy place to work that it is precisely because with each new base T&C'c became worse.

I could be wrong, but didnt the shamrock pilots already sell out to management allowing newjoiners to start on different T&c's?

mini FR is not a comparison, as they are not unionised, so they can pay what they can get people to accept at whichever base they choose.

One company, one seniority list, one contract. No exceptions. What the company's doing is getting the pilots to subsidize the opening of a new base....what a deal! Aer Lingus management seems to be not only smoking the wacky tobbacy but they are inhaling as well. Go Evan!:ok:

Guys, I'm not taking sides here, just looking for the valid rationale behind the strike...

In these times unless EI has broken a binding agreement of some kind the strike will get hammered in the courts...

I think this will be viewed by Joe Soap Traveller (who doesn't care) as an emotional knee jerk reaction to the Shannon pullout.

If EI has broken an agreement surely the courts are the place to settle it?

What's the agenda?

Your average travelling guy still equates EI with DUB... more hassle can only reduce public sympathy surely?

FR are competitors therefore their T&C's are valid comparison in terms of cost base.

Capitalism sucks :*

I support this strike 100%. There is absolutely no reason why the BFS based pilots should get less. Belfast is not cheap these days either.

Well done to the AL pilots and good luck.

ps. FR have done enough to ruin this profession as it is, AL should not be benchmarked against them

well done top you all.respect!

A 'swift and solid response' in this instance amounts to shooting yourself in both feet. Why? Because the strike is against yourself as a shareholder!
O'Leary and company in Ryanair must be laughing all the way to higher profits at AL's and its employees (also shareholders) expense!
Cop on guys and gals and call off the 48 hour strike before it's too late.
Sit down with AL management and hammer out a meaningful agreement which will result in a lower cost base and which might raise a few eye brows elsewhere including Ryanair.
Meanwhile I must log on to FR's site and book those Manchester flights in Sept because I cannot rely on AL to deliver. Pity because I believe in competition.
Then again only for the competiton between FR and AL I would still be paying a fortune to AL like I used to 15 years ago.
Remember those years when it cost 250 Punts/330 Euro for flights between Irish and British Airports.
Did IALPA consider 48 hour strikes in those years because AL would not consider lower fares? Like hell they did because those were the years when Aer Lingus staff at all levels milked the passenger as much as possible with the connivance of the various Governments.
Despite all the criticism of MOL/Ryanair it was not until his/their arrival that AL went part of the way under Willie Walsh and became somewhat more competitive.
Mannion is trying to move all the AL staff along the competitve road but of course the various unions and staff at AL don't want to know. A lot has changed but not enough.
When will the Unions and AL Staff cop on to the reality of the situation as it is now and accept that the way forward is sitting down with AL management and agree to new more competitive work practices before it's too late - again!

It is refreshing to see pilots stick together on this one. Not just interested in there own conditions, but in that of the whole group. Solidarity will benefit the mayority in the end, and that is what counts. I support this and hope we will see more in the future. :ok:

The info I have for Dub crews (maybe outdated) is 92K for Captains and 57K for F/O's. Anyone confirm or deny this?

BR.

Got this on PPJN.

Brief Payscale(please ignore if the detailed payscale above is up to date)Capt top€176,306 (yr28)+ €79 over 520pa 21/Feb/06 Capt base€91,984 + €75 over 520pa FO top €121,602 (yr28)+ €55 over 502pa 21/Feb/06 FO baseE57,032 (year 1) 28/May/07 SO top
SO baseFE topFE baseFlight Pay / Per DiemCapt17 UK, 25 Eur, 92 US East, 130 US West FO17 / 25 / 92 /130 SOFEPension DetailsFinal Salary Scheme. Employee contribution 7%. Company contribution 21%. ConditionsRoster5 on / 3 off / 5 on / 2 off Leave44 days year 1 51 days year 20 Staff travelYes - STBY only Discounted holidaysNo

Aer lingus can still be competitive and offer cheap flights to the UK. Offering 30 new pilots at BFS the same as their Dublin counterparts is not going to change that!

This move is about splitting the pilot's union and creating a base with no career opportunities within Aer Lingus. It treats BFS as second class citizen's not worthy of as much pay as Dublin. I find it highly offensive.

The company should be brought to it's knee's over this

Things are changing, This not a semi-state anymore, all decisions need to be in the interest of shareholders........It would appear EI Pilots are paid well above market rate.......what do you expect from an ever evolving industry, where the emphasis is on reduciing costs and increasing productivity....?

The Good days are over.........for EI pilots.....

Well done, i'm 100% behind you.....:D

Dear Headinclouds,
What a suitable name!!:ugh: Enough said.
Perhaps if we all defended ourselves more in the past we wouldn't constantly find ourselves defending our careers against others, in a constant erosion of working conditions as benchmarked against each other.
No-one is going to stand up for you if you don't stand up for yourself!!
Bring it on!

Good luck EI pilots!
You are 100% right. One of the reasons our profession is in the state it is worldwide is simply because over the years, nobody stood together and said NO.

Vamos! :ok:

EI management have severely mishandled this. By underestimating the will of their employees, they will probably lose as much in turnover and future customer goodwill as they would have saved in pilot remuneration. Michael O'Leary's EGM call re:Shannon would have probably prompted a management threat to walk but with this looming the other shareholders might tell them "there's the door".

asfkap, the pilots have an agreement called scope which covers who can fly our aircraft and from where. We have given up many things over the years in its defense because we felt it was the jewel in our ir crown. Now the management of Aer Lingus have decided to take all we gave up and circumvent scope with these new hire pilots. The engineers and cabin crew union chose to peruse a different course consequently the new base does not conflict with any of their collective agreements. This is why we are up in arms and the others are not.
Headincloads, I assume you are out to rattle the cage but you do bring up a point thats worth getting straight. Aer Lingus pilots work as hard as any in Europe typically 850 flight hours a year, most will during the course of the year be required to stand down to avoid exceeding state legal limits. Our package is commensurate with this level of productivity and if MOL is to believed in his interview on newstalk106 below FR.

I'm in full support of the pilots strike action, but when the rest of us in EI are getting dumped on by the managment no one sticks together. It should be a full company strike in support of our friends and colleagues in Shannon, some of us seem to be forgetting about them in my view.
One more point the Enigneers in EI work dame hard and consently goes unnoticed. :ugh:
I'll finish by saying one more time 'we all need to stick together, Pilots, Engineers, Cabin Crew, Groundstaff etc'

Management tried to enforce new T&C`s on the recently hired guys, but IALPA successfully managed to change this.
One company, one seniority list, one contract.......the way it is, and the way it should stay.

'Management tried to enforce new T&C`s on the recently hired guys, but IALPA successfully managed to change this.
One company, one seniority list, one contract.......the way it is, and the way it should stay'

INLAK: I think you may find by comparing an old and new Contract that these ARE Different.......

I just listened to the archived broadcast. Or at least, I think it was the same one ASKAP referred to, because I don't recognise his take on it.

Mr.Landers came over calm and collected, and politely laid out his points, which were quite illuminating re Aer Lingus' misinformation agenda.

Then Mr.Mannion came on - and he sounded like a man on the verge of losing it. He barked at the interviewer, shouted over her attempts to extract answers, and generally sounded as if he was about to have a minor coronary.
Not professional, not convincing.
Lets face it though - the poor man is Public Enemy Number One at the moment. The strain is clearly taking its toll.:rolleyes:

What fascinates me is that he's either an actor of DeNiro's abilities, or he truly didn't realise the impact (ooeerrr) his latest bumblings would bring down on his head. In which case, the company is being run by a nincompoop.

Eejits
 

This union lark sickens me.

It's simple. If you like the deal AL offer, fly for them. If you're under paid, that must mean someone is willing to offer YOU more. So move to the company who is willing to offer more. If this company doesn't exist, sit down, shut up and stop acting like left wing civil service monkeys.

Unions are gone, as is flying being a top end job. Do finance if you want money...

You have no support from the Irish public.

VT

VORTIME.

Not going to bite:=

Stick to GA mate

Well Done THE HEDGE!!:D

Dutch PM

"It would appear EI Pilots are paid well above market rate."

Er... I don't think so, the Basic is way short if the above post, #21, by Top Jock is anything to go by, certainly not by UK standards anyway. Just take a look at the other UK operators on PPJN and I think you will find that EI fall way short of the mark on basic salary once you do a Euro/Sterling conversion. Unless the figures quoted are NOT what you guys are really getting? If this is the case, then, could some one from EI post the actual figures?

What are the proposed Salaries / T's & C's for the BFS Pilots?

Thanks.



BR.

What are the proposed Salaries / T's & C's for the BFS Pilots?


Yes that would be most helpful in this thread. Come up with some numbers from both Dublin based newbies and Belfast Newbies. Please from somebody who actually knows from within!:ugh:

Dutch MP

IFALPA Recruitment Ban
 

i see IFALPA have joined the row.....http://www.ifalpa.org/jobs/recruitme...0(Ireland).pdf
does any one know what this means to wannabee green bus drivers???

You have always to think one step ahead of the other side in this game.


If they can establish a cheap base then the next step will be to have crews doing trips like bfs-man-dub-fra-dub-european nightstop-dub-fra-dub-man-bfs.


You either have an agreement and enforce it or get ready for the broom handle and just hope you don't get the broom head as well.

Very true. From the paper today:

Average house prices for:

Northern Ireland £240,302
England £221,370
Scotland £165,363
Wales £165,119

not sure how the Republic stands

'Fraid not ASKAP.
Read it and weep.



Average price in ROI = €304,166 = 206,465 GBP

Average price in NI = 240,302 GBP

The average ROI house is 33,837 GBP ( 49,864.13 euro) cheaper than NI.
Or to put it another way, the NI house is 16.5% more expensive.:=

On a side note, I'm due to fly to geneva on the 23rd. Will DUB be complete mayhem on that day (the day right after 2 days of striking) if the industrial action isn't avoided? Will I get to fly?

Clever move by MOL today. All eyes will be on the Govt appointed Directors to see how they vote. The Govt cannot sit on the fence on this one. One things has me scratching my head though. If the Board wasn't informed prior to EI announcing the BFS/SNN moves...then why is the Minister for Transport asking Dermot Mannion and John Sharman (Chairman) to visit business leaders in the West and explain their decision. If the Board weren't consulted...what's the point of the John Sharman tagging along.

On a matter of Good Corporate Governance...I would love to know the answer to this question. Has the Board delegated authority for strategic investment decisions to the Executive Management Team. Strategy defined simply is...Where is the business trying to get to in the long-term (direction). This is something that the Board should be interested in and consulted about. If the Board isn't doing this then it should be sacked. However if the Executive Management Team decided themselves without consulting the Board...well you would have to call into question the Executive Management Team's actions.

trustno1 - do you think the FR board approves everything MOL does?