Aer Lingus’s chief pilot has said he’s going to consider beginning the process of assessing whether a demoted senior pilot can have his rank as captain returned “in the coming weeks”.
John Kelly was giving evidence at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on complaints alleging whistleblower penalisation brought by the pilot, Declan McCabe.
McCabe was demoted following a company probe into the incident at Dublin Airport, when an Airbus A321neo jet, flying from Munich with 156 passengers and crew aboard, failed to link up with the radio navigation beacon for the new north runway on June 8th, 2023.
McCabe said what happened was “a non-event from a flying point of view” and that relevant Aer Lingus manual left it up to his judgment to decide whether to report it.
RM Block
The airline contends he failed to comply with his safety reporting duties and was sanctioned on foot of a fair disciplinary process.
The parties dispute whether the most likely reason for the event, which was ultimately determined to be a “low severity” occurrence.
The tribunal heard McCabe commanded 16 flights between the June 8th, 2023, event and being taken off flying duties on July 4th, pending the safety investigation.
Giving evidence, Kelly told counsel for the respondent, Tom Mallon BL, that he was not aware of correspondence sent the day before by McCabe to Aer Lingus CEO Lynn Embleton – which McCabe alleges was a protected disclosure. The witness said it had no influence on his decision to take the complainant off flight duties.
David Byrnes BL, for the complainant, put it to the witness that while he had found it necessary to suspend McCabe pending the outcome of the safety probe, he had not done so for other safety investigations. Counsel cited an Air Accident Investigation Unit case in which a “loss of control on approach to Dublin” was identified.
“That pilot was not stood down,” counsel said. Kelly confirmed this.
Byrnes put it to Kelly a more appropriate time to initiate the suspension was when the view had been formed that McCabe was refusing to file one. Kelly disagreed.
In another incident there was a “tail strike” when an Aer Lingus jet landed in Washington DC – costing the airline “millions” and bringing about another AAIU probe, counsel said.
“Was that pilot put at a safe distance from any investigation?” counsel asked.
“I don’t believe so,” Kelly said.
“These are actual serious incidents with the flying of the aircraft … and yet a low severity non-report allegation is enough to put my client at a distance. Do you see the problem?”
Kelly said there had been a “very timely safety report” in the case of the second incident.
Kelly was also asked whether he had any doubt that McCabe would file a safety report now.
“I do not harbour any doubt that he would,” Kelly said. He said he expected to review McCabe’s position “over the next coming number of weeks, six to eight weeks”.
The case continues on Tuesday.
