PILOTS AT Aer Lingus will meet tomorrow evening to discuss the proposals from independent arbitrator Kieran Mulvey on pay and redundancies, aimed at helping the airline achieve cost savings of €30 million a year.
It is understood that officials of the pilots’ representative body Ialpa met yesterday to discuss the proposals, and plan to address a meeting of Aer Lingus pilots tomorrow.
About 450 Aer Lingus pilots are affected by the cost-cutting proposals.
Aer Lingus, meanwhile, said yesterday that it was continuing to study the proposals contained in Mr Mulvey’s document. However, it declined to comment on whether or not it would accept the findings.
It is understood that while the pilots accept the need to achieve €30 million worth of cost savings they are unhappy with some elements of Mr Mulvey’s document, which was presented to both sides on January 8th.
Following engagement with the airline and Ialpa in mid-December, Mr Mulvey identified a number of ways of achieving the €30 million cost savings.
These include a 10 per cent cut in basic pay for all pilots – estimated to save €6.2 million a year – and 50 redundancies of “top of scale” captains, which would yield Aer Lingus a saving of €15.2 million.
However, some pilots are thought to be unhappy that, having identified ways of achieving the required cost savings being sought by the airline, Mr Mulvey also included an extensive commentary in his document on the pilots’ pension scheme and scope issues.
Some pilots believe that Mr Mulvey, who heads the Labour Relations Commission, has acted outside his terms of reference in including these issues in his document.
They argue that Mr Mulvey’s remit – which was drawn up by the employers’ body Ibec and umbrella union group Ictu – extended only to identifying €30 million in cost savings.
Aer Lingus and its pilots are in dispute about funding arrangements and contributions for the pension scheme, which is currently in deficit.
Ialpa yesterday declined to comment on the proposals contained in Mr Mulvey’s document.
“It would be inappropriate to comment until the meeting of pilots has had an opportunity to consider the proposals,” Ialpa said.
Aer Lingus is seeking to trim its overheads by €97 million a year in a bid to return to profitability. The company wants 676 redundancies from its workforce as part of this process.
Talks with the pilots broke down before Christmas, and led to Ibec and Ictu requesting that both sides commit to an independent arbitration process chaired by Mr Mulvey.
