This article is from page 4 of the 2007-08-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
ALMOST 500 pilots at Aer Lingus are to stage a two-day strike next week in protest at the airline’s plan to employ pilots at its new Belfast base at lower pay rates.
Next week’s strike will affect all Aer Lingus services.
Staff at Aer Lingus in Shannon are “furious” at the way they heard of the loss of the Heathrow flights, and are now concerned that the transatlantic flights will follow the same fate.
Workers say they first heard ru- mours about the loss of the slots from Dublin.
‘Mike’, one of the employees who did not want to publish his full name, checked the Aer Lingus website.
“On the Thursday night/Friday morning, I checked the Aer Lingus website. Normally, it goes way ahead into next year.”
He picked the date of March 30, 2008, which is in the summer sched- ule, but could not get a flight out of Syat-vepeleyey
“The proof was already on the Aer Lingus website that Thursday,” he PHO
“It also wasn’t available on the Shannon Airport website, so who told who what is a very intriguing Lb a (eye
“It was a done deal by the time we were advised of it officially on Tuesday morning here at the meet- ing,’ said Geraldine Morrissey, who has more than 30 years’ experience working with the company.
There is still no summer schedule finalised for transatlantic flights ac- cording to staff, and they now fear that the Chicago route 1s at risk.
“We have huge concerns over the Atlantic. We could be in here in a few months’ time, hanging on with our fingernails to the last airplane leaving the airport. That is what we will be doing,” said Brian Slattery, ground operations.
The Quin man who has been work- ing with Aer Lingus for 16 year said he was concerned about “unhelpful, misleading comments made by Min- ister Dempsey”.
“Firstly Minister Dempsey has stated that we may be ‘exaggerating the crisis in Shannon caused by Aer Lingus’ decision to axe its Shannon- London-Heathrow route’.
‘He is grossly misleading the pub- lic with this comment and his opin- ion that another airline may take up the route is without research or fact. The huge cost of any precious slot into Heathrow is approximately 20 million pounds sterling, which would deter any new airline from bidding for these slots, slots which we must stress are very hard to acquire and are under control of the British Air- port Authority,” he said.
The workers argue that Dublin Airport is saturated with flights into Heathrow and that not all of those slots are busy.
“Dublin afternoon slots are always light in load,” according to Ms Mor- rissey, who argued that Aer Lin- gus could have taken one of those flights.
“We place this problem right back at the Government. They promised us they were going to enshrine and protect the slots and they did not do it,” said Padraig Geraghty, Aer Lin- gus maintenance.
The Roscommon man moved from
Dublin to Shannon in 1995 so he could live in the west of Ireland, hav- ing worked with the company since IW e
“We are in trouble too — as Aer Lingus take their services out of Shannon, there will be less aircraft to maintain. They then won’t fly the aircraft to Shannon to do the mainte- nance as it won’t be viable.
“This is just a test case. They cer- tainly will go after slots in Cork and Dublin. This is all about money now. It has nothing to do with the Irish people or the Irish assets. They’ll go from Heathrow to JFK direct, they will do anything, but the slots will leave this country, make no mistake they will go,” he said.
The most senior member of the cabin crew in Shannon, John O’Shea, said, “If they can take slots out of Shannon, they can move the Aer Lingus brand to anywhere else. They don’t have to maintain it in Ireland. It is a private company now.
“And this is the type of arrogance they’re coming out with. This is only testing the waters. This is only a drop in the ocean of what Aer Lingus think they can do. They think they have