No Irish need apply to fly

In what has heightened Aer Lingus staff concerns that the struggling airline is setting up overseas operational bases so that lower cost offshore contract air crews can be employed, at “local” employment terms rather than existing rates in Ireland, broad details of the shifts to the U.S. and Britain emerged at a hearing last week by the Joint Transport Committee made up of TDs and senators.
Parliamentarians of all parties registered disquiet and were perceptibly unsettled by the disclosure that Aer Lingus has joined in a 50-50 joint venture with United Airlines to fly the Washington-Madrid route from March, but that recruitment of Irish crews is virtually out of the question at a time when Aer Lingus is pressing for 670 jobs to be trimmed as part of its latest streamlining program.
In adverts which have already appeared in the U.S., the joint venture has specified that pilots and cabin crew must be American citizens or hold U.S. work permits.
Under intense questioning from joint committee members, senior Aer Lingus management argued that some of the airline’s 530 pilots hold American citizenship or green cards and would therefore qualify for eight of the 16 pilot jobs for the joint venture.
While Aer Lingus Director of Corporate Affairs, Enda Corneille and Human Resources Director, Michael Grealy, protested that the joint venture was “a separate legal entity,” Irish Airline Pilots Association leader, Capt. Evan Cullen told the hearing at Government Buildings in Dublin that his members took a very different view.
Under new pilot contracts placed before the Transport Committee, “pilots would be self-employed” and this raised the specter of “outsourcing” of staff which the pilots have been to the fore in resisting.
That charge was strongly supported by Labor TD Tommy Broughan representing one of the heavy concentrations of Aer Lingus workers in the Dublin North East constituency.
He accused Aer Lingus of adopting Ryanair strategy and employing multi national staff spread over 50 jurisdictions.
“We are talking fantasy land. You are setting up a poor man’s Ryanair and it will end up that Ryanair will take you over,” Broughan said.
The pilot union’s Capt. Cullen also charged that on the proposed joint venture service on which Aer Lingus aircraft would be used, the different regulations under which Aer Lingus transatlantic flights were allowed to operate with two pilots – this while U.S. operators are obliged to have three pilots in the cockpit – would apply.
That difference has been an established advantage for Aer Lingus over its competitors on the Atlantic, he told the hearing.
Pilots have been particularly angered by the Aer Lingus moves in light of the support which the group provided in fighting off repeated Ryanair takeover bids.
Capt. Cullen pointed out that besides taking salary cuts varying from four to eight percent depending on rungs of the pay scale, pilots had formed a “Tailwind” investment group to add a defensive shareholding in the airline which amounted to