Aer Lingus pilots aligned to the IALPA (Irish Airline Pilots’ Association) trade union have escalated the chaos engulfing the carrier by announcing they will strike – for 8 hours, from 5am to 1pm – on Saturday, June 29.
The move comes after the pilots – who recently voted to take industrial action over a pay dispute – earlier this week said they would start a work-to-rule period from next Wednesday.
The latest news came on a frenetic Friday evening when Aer Lingus gave more clarity over what flights will be cancelled next week due to the industrial action.
Aer Lingus already said, this week, that it would be cancelling 10%-20% of flights from next Wednesday to the following Sunday due to the situation.
It emerged, yesterday evening, that the cancelled flights, next week, will hit the following routes/destinations out of Dublin: London Heathrow, Amsterdam, Lyon, Berlin, Birmingham, Brussels, Dusseldorf, Rome, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, Manchester, Munich, Vienna; and out of Cork: London Heathrow. On a long-haul basis, the Dublin-New York/JFK route will also be hit.
In a statement, Aer Lingus said: “Aer Lingus today condemns the decision by IALPA to inflict further pain on passengers by announcing an 8-hour strike on Saturday, 29th June.
“The company said it is appalled that IALPA would further escalate this industrial action, following the insidious action previously announced. IALPA’s decision is clearly designed to inflict maximum damage on passenger’s travel plans at the peak of the holiday season.”
“Aer Lingus will assess the impact of this notice of strike action and do everything we can to minimise the further disruption this will cause to passengers.”
In an earlier statement, on Friday night, Aer Lingus said: “Aer Lingus has today taken the step of cancelling flights on the first 5 days of the industrial action (Wednesday 26th to Sunday 30th June). The insidious and indefinite form of IALPA’s industrial action is designed to severely disrupt passengers in the peak of the summer season. Without these cancellations, the impact would be a lot worse for customers. 24 flights a day have been cancelled in the first 5 days on the industrial action – a total of 124 flights over those 5 days. This will impact approximately 4,000 customers per day and 20,000 customers over the course of the 5 days. The level of cancellations is currently at the lower end of the 10% – 20% range. However, given the form of the industrial action there may be additional cancellations which happen close to the time of travel.
“Aer Lingus has automatically rebooked some customers onto alternative flights and has begun emailing all other customers informing them of the cancellation and advising them of their options: to change their flight for free, to request a refund or to request a voucher. The list of cancelled flights is now available on the ‘Travel Advisory’ on the Aer Lingus website at aerlingus.com. Aer Lingus Regional flights, operated by Emerald Airlines, are unaffected by IALPA’s industrial action commencing on 26th June, and will operate as scheduled. Aer Lingus Regional flight numbers are in the range EI3000 – EI3999.”
