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The Labour Court is set to conduct a formal hearing into the pay dispute between unions and management at Aer Lingus.
The intervention will take place on Wednesday, following the end of marathon talks late on Tuesday night. The Court is set to intervene under Section 25 of the Industrial Disputes Act.
The dispute arose from pilots seeking a pay rise of almost 24 per cent, while the airline demanded increased flexibility and productivity in exchange for increases above 12.25 per cent.
Aer Lingus Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Donal Moriarty confirmed that the airline will attend the formal hearing.
“It was a constructive engagement with the court and I think the court’s assessment was that the best approach that it could take at this time was to formally intervene and conduct a formal hearing and they’re doing that on Wednesday,” he said.
The ongoing pay dispute between Aer Lingus management and the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association saw the Labour Court hold a meeting with the two sides yesterday. The meeting, which ran for over eight hours, saw the parties informed that it will exercise its right to intervene under the Industrial Relations Act.
The court has asked that the dispute is not escalated, and that the current work-to-rule by IALPA members of Aer Lingus remains in place. It has asked that final written submissions be made by both parties by close of business Tuesday, and a recommendation will be issued following on from the hearing.
Meanwhile, IALPA President Captain Mark Tighe said Aer Lingus has not altered any of its demands, while claiming that the airline had recently added additional ones.
“So, we had a full afternoon and evening with the Labour Court where they posed questions to both sides,” he said.
“The company, not only have they indicated that they were not moving off their statement of 12.25%… They also brought to the Labour Court new demands which the Labour Court have not seen before.”
270 services have so far been disrupted because of the industrial action, with the majority being for the UK and mainland Europe.
At the end of last week, the airline confirmed that a further 122 flights were being cancelled up until 7th July over the industrial action.
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