Aer Lingus pilots begin eight-hour strike in pay dispute

Aer Lingus pilots are going on strike (PA)

Aer Lingus pilots have begun their eight-hour strike on Saturday in a bitter dispute with the airline over pay.

The walkout comes as primary schools in Ireland finished up for their summer holidays and when many will be preparing for family trips abroad.

Despite pressure from the Irish premier and other senior government figures for both sides to “dig deep” to resolve the dispute, there have been no breakthroughs.

Members of the pilots group are gathering at 5am and getting a bus to Dublin Airport.

Several hundred pilots are then expected to march around the airport and will picket outside until 9am. The strike will continue until 1pm on Saturday.

A chance of a breakthrough came in the form of an invite to attend a Labour Court meeting on Monday, which was issued on Friday while Ialpa’s disputes committee considered an escalation.

The union formally accepted the invite and agreed not to escalate “at this point in time” but said Saturday’s strike and the work-to-rule would continue.

Aer Lingus and the Forsa union, of which the Irish Air Line Pilots’ Association (Ialpa) is associated with, also accepted the invite.

Ialpa president Mark Tighe said he was not aware whether they would be in the same room or not, as previous meetings had seen management and pilots hold discussions separately.

The pilots are seeking a pay increase of 24%, which they say equates to inflation since the last pay rise in 2019.

Aer Lingus has said it is willing to offer pay increases of 12.25% or above if “improvements in productivity and flexibility” are discussed.

One stumbling block is that the pilots union has said their mandate is to refrain from discussing productivity while the airline is saying it will only discuss higher pay increases if that condition is included.

“There’s an opportunity here. If it fails, then an escalation would certainly be realistic,” Ialpa president Captain Mark Tighe said.

Asked about whether other Ialpa pilots who work for other airlines would cross the picket, he said: “The days of not crossing a picket to do your job in another company I think maybe are gone.”

Aer Lingus chief corporate affairs officer Donal Moriarty said that the airline had “engaged constructively” in discussions with Ialpa and Forsa.