Aer Lingus announced today, Wednesday, July 3 that it is canceling an additional 76 flights amid ongoing industrial action by the Irish Air Line Pilots' Association (IALPA).
Aer Lingus said it is canceling the 76 additional flights from Monday, July 8 to Wednesday, July 10 inclusive "in order to continue to protect as many services as possible from the continuing and highly disruptive impact of IALPA’s continuing industrial action."
The airline said on Wednesday: "Implementing these cancellations is to enable us to protect as many services as possible for as many of our customers as possible.
"These cancellations will be implemented today, and details will be communicated to impacted customers.
"Details of the services impacted are set out on the ‘Travel Advisory’ page of AerLingus.com."
Between July 8 and July 10, 38 flights departing Ireland have been canceled, 15 flights departing the UK have been canceled, 20 flights departing Europe have been canceled, and three flights departing the US (all from New York's JFK airport) have been canceled.
Aer Lingus said on Wednesday that customers impacted by the cancelations between July 8 and July 10 will be given the option to change their flights for free. They will also be able to claim a refund or voucher. These options will be communicated directly to impacted customers as well as travel agents, while the Aer Lingus ‘Travel Advisory’ page will also have up to the minute information on all the options.
Aer Lingus added that it "fully understands the anxiety being experienced by customers given the uncertainty caused by IALPA’s industrial action and is giving impacted customers as many options as possible.”
IALPA commenced its indefinite 'work-to-rule' industrial action on June 26, and pilots additionally staged an eight-hour strike last Saturday, June 29.
On Monday, the Labour Court met both Aer Lingus and IALPA for more than eight hours before informing both parties that it will exercise its right to intervene in the dispute under the Industrial Relations Act, RTÉ News reports.
On Tuesday, Aer Lingus and IALPA lodged written submissions to the Labour Court and are making presentations at a hearing today. The Labour Court will then issue a recommendation.
According to RTÉ News, the Labour Court has asked that there be no escalation of the dispute, but the current work-to-rule by IALPA members at Aer Lingus is remaining in place.
Ahead of Wednesday's Labour Court presentations, Donal Moriarty, the chief corporate affairs officer at Aer Lingus, apologized to customers for the cancellations.
“We are trying to communicate as effectively as possible with our customers, giving them the options to rebook, to refund or to rearrange their travel," Moriarty said, according to the PA.
“But we do appreciate that this is very disruptive upon them and that’s uppermost in our mind.
“We’d like to go through the process of seeing what the court recommend and address the consequences of that afterwards rather than now.”
He added: “The reason for the cancellations is to build resilience into our schedule, to limit the number of cancellations actually, because without that resilience and that buffer within our operation, there would be more cancellations.
“The nature of the work to rule is cumulative. As rosters age they deteriorate and an unwillingness to accept changes to rosters on a daily basis means that the roster deteriorates over time and that’s what causes the impact in terms of cancellations.”
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