General Industry

Strike Action To Cost Aer Lingus €10 million

By Publications Checkout
Strike Action To Cost Aer Lingus €10 million

Aer Lingus will lose €10 million over the upcoming long weekend owing to a planned strike by its cabin crew. Up to 28,000 people were booked to fly on the day of the planned work stoppage this Friday — the beginning of the bank holiday weekend — and of these 18,000 have either been refunded or have rebooked their flights.    The point of conflict is the organisation of rosters, and Aer Lingus recently revealed that gains in revenue it made last month have been eradicated because of the strike threat.   Cabin crew are angling for for a five-days-on-and-three-days-off roster, but the airline claims this is "unworkable".   In an internal message to cabin crew last week, Aer Lingus management said the airline had already lost a "very significant amount of bookings to other airlines due to negative publicity."   The airline claimed also that allegations made by the trade union IMPACT in relation to existing roster arrangements were misleading, and that the union had used extreme examples that did not accurately reflect the airline’s actual rosters. They posted a message on their website for the attention of their clientele:   "We apologise to our customers for the uncertainty and inconvenience this unnecessary industrial action by IMPACT has caused.   "We will do everything possible to minimise the disruption and we will communicate any further changes to customers via email, SMS, social media and broadcast media," the carrier added.

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