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LAST UPDATE | 29 Jun 2024
HUNDREDS OF AER Lingus pilots marched around Dublin Airport during an eight-hour strike this morning as part of the ongoing dispute over pay which has seen hundreds of flights cancelled during the busiest travel season.
The pilots, all in full uniform, set off at 6am from Aer Lingus’s head office on the airport site and walked past the two terminal buildings twice holding placards and banners.
The demonstration, which took place in pouring rain, caused major traffic disruption around the airport.
After the march was concluded, pilots set up a picket line at the main roundabout on the entrance to the airport.
.@IALPA members taking part in strike action today. pic.twitter.com/lLqluvGZJb
— Diarmuid Pepper (@Diarmuid_9) June 29, 2024
Today’s all-out strike is part of a broader strike, with pilots starting indefinite work-to-rule industrial action this week.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, pilots in Boston, Orlando and Seattle formed pickets in support of Aer Lingus pilots. Those who participated are members of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).
Members of the Irish Air Line Pilots’ Association (IALPA) are seeking a pay increase of 23.8% over three years, which it says is “clearly reasonable and affordable for a profitable company such as Aer Lingus”.
The union noted that in 2023, Aer Lingus had a full year operating profit of €225 million.
This was a 400% increase on 2022, when a full year operating profit of €45 million was recorded.
However, Aer Lingus has said it is willing to offer pay increases of 12.5% or above if “improvements in productivity and flexibility” are discussed.
Both sides are at an impasse. IALPA reps said yesterday that chances of an additional strike and further industrial action are high after talks in the 22-month dispute over pay broke down on Thursday.
A spokesperson told The Journal on Thursday: “The IALPA executive is considering a further work stoppage due to the companies clear escalation today by informing IALPA that it will unilaterally terminate the standing collective agreements, should IALPA not agree to amend them.”
However, the union has rolled back on any planned escalation and both sides have agreed to attend the Labour Court on Monday.
Aer Lingus cancelled an additional 122 flights next week due to the action, bringing the number of cancelled flights to 392.
With reporting from Diarmuid Pepper, Jane Matthews and Press Association
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In a local shop this morning and 4 guys from the north walked in with no masks. They were asked to put them on and said they were “exempt”. It’s crazy and frustrating the sheer ignorance of certain people but that’s what’s happening on a daily basis up here in Donegal.
@Brian: I hope they were refused service
@Shaun Gallagher: poor girl couldn’t do a thing. She was on her own and they were very unpleasant towards her. Enforceable need to brought in to stop this.
@Brian: enforceable laws. My apologies
@Brian: Correct. They are fined upto £10k in the North if they don’t wear it. Should be the same here
@Brian: Bring in an SS type force sure. No half measures.
@Monster Munch: sure why not. If that what it takes to deal with muppets
@Brian: The SS to deal with three lads in Donegal… Yes!
@Monster Munch: muppets who don’t wear masks
@Brian: The SS are not the answer Brian to anything. 95-97 percent are wearing masks. Time to change the script.
@Monster Munch: change what script. I’m referring to people who don’t wear masks. It’s the same script that everyone is listening to and reading about. Did you miss the memo on this. Maybe you can’t comprehend the damage the entitled 2-3% who don’t wear masks can do. Bring in hefty enforceable fines to those who don’t adhere to the guidelines.
@Brian: But I can comprehend the damage the SS would do. Will we get the concentration camps going as well? Reminder we got to single digit cases with mask Compliance below 50 percent…
@Monster Munch: your constant referencing to SS and concentration camps is quite disturbing. Maybe have a wee ly down. Tomorrow is a new day and you might see the value of masks after a good rest.
On Wednesday the next 10 days are absolutely critical, on Thursday the next 10 days are critical, on Friday the next 14 days are critical. Wonder what today will bring…
@Monster Munch: you’d nearly think that there is a global pandemic on the go that has claimed a million lives.
@GrumpyAulFella: Just trying to figure out if it’s 7, 8 or 13 days that are critical. Im holding firm as best I can. It’s in our hands after all.
@Monster Munch: if you assume that every day is critical until this is over then this messaging won’t bother you so much.
@GrumpyAulFella: Why don’t they just say that then? Is there a timeline for this to end?
@Monster Munch: yes when a vaccine is available but sure if you have to ask that question then you’re a lost cause. Too many people incapable of making their own decisions and looking to be mammy’d again.
Mehole reported yesterday that the rate in stranorlar/ lifford is a wopping 361 per 100000. I can’t find the population of stranorlar, but the pop of ballybofey/stranorlar is just under 5000. The pop of lifford is just over 1, 500. If we take a rough population of this bigger area as 6, 500, that equates to about 24 individuals who have tested positive
@Anne Marie Devlin: yes, they are out to get ya
@Anne Marie Devlin: I’m originally from close to there. There’s nothing in Stranorlar apart from one secondary school with 900 pupils, one secondary vocational school with around 350 pupils, a large primary school with several hundred kids. There are of course several housing estates but the schools in particular cater to a very large catchment area, I’ve not seen details on contact tracing which rules the schools out, of course I’m just expressing an opinion on this and I could be completely wrong!
@Anne Marie Devlin: the population of the Lifford – Stranorlar electoral area is almost 26,000. The positive cases for the area as reported on Thursday evening was 87 and then rounded up to 336 per 100,000.
@Gerard McConnell: one wake one communion and a party after a football match apparently caused most of the recent cases.
Waste of time. Only suggestions, no powers to enforce. People will do what they want.
@David Connell: yes it is a waste of time if people like you do nothing to help stop the spread of the virus. The sooner you do what’s asked of you the better it is for everyone. Only the people can stop the spread.
@Macca Attack: I only stated facts. I agree with you, but government should make laws that hold people accountable. Fine people if need be, but make it a law. Simple.
@David Connell: Spain 200 euro …on the spot or Jail
@Charles Shelly: what effect has that had on their cases? Have they gone up or down?
@Monster Munch: what a dumb question
@David Connell: you’ve sad it. People will do what they want and then NPHET get accused of “blaming people” for the spread of the virus. If the govt empower the police to enforce then the govt is accused of introducing a “police state” by the anti-mask, anti-lockdown mob. The power to halt this is in the people’s hands.
It’s in the filing cabinet
What an attitude the government has to MAKE IT LAW….LIKE IN Spain 200euro fine. To soft a Government …In Galway there all not wearing mask 50% of them out shopping..
@Charles Shelly: HSE’s own survey said Compliance was at 95-97 percent. Masks are not the issue.
No such thing as wet pubs.
@Colum Cusack: yo obviously haven’t been in some near closing time. Glasses, dripping just coming from ‘washer’, floor wet with spilled pints, counter and tables dripping, toilets flooded, toilets in corners where clientele make use of facilities. Most of this is not seen due to level of inebriation, just the comment, “the place was heaving”.
@Colum Cusack: A term coined by NPHET to dehumanize social ways of life into mere virus control vehicles.
@Brendan Cooney: Total Exaggeration there now, maybe that might happen in One Pub, but you could visit 100 others and NO such situation would arise. Contrary to your opinion, they are NOT Pigsties .
They were probably on their way to the anti mask protest march in letterkenny taking place LATER today. A slap in the face for health care workers.
@C_O’S: Time to get the water Cannons out.
@DJ Dave Wexford: bulldoze them. Better still, round them all up and dump them on Rathlin O’Birne. They can wear no masks to their hearts content there.
Dr Jay Bhattacharya has been on point throughout this crisis. We need to do a proportionate analysis on benefits vs costs of lockdown. This debate still isn’t happening https://youtu.be/T_COvdCujaA
As usual a lot of the outbreaks seem to be arising from uncontrolled indoor gatherings, but what do they do, take the easy but stupid option and close the controlled indoor environments. The only country in Europe to take this draconian measure at this stage and drive all the parties into houses where no-one has control or of course tip over the border to where the pubs are open
have your say