Both sides in the pay dispute between Aer Lingus pilots and management have accepted an invitation from the Labour Court to attend a meeting on Monday.
The invitation was issued this afternoon to the parties asking them to come to the court’s offices.
Aer Lingus has welcomed the development and confirmed its representatives will be attending.
Forsa, the parent of the Irish Airline Pilots Association union, said it had also accepted the invitation, saying that the “outcome of any Labour Court process will be crucial”.
“The union takes the view that we are at a critical point in this dispute,” it said.
Pilots at Aer Lingus have backed away from a plan to escalate their industrial action following the invitation to talks.
IALPA was seeking to hold another work stoppage in the coming days, subject to the sanction of the disputes committee of its parent union Fórsa, which had not yet made a decision when the invitation was received from the Labour Court.
President of IALPA Captain Mark Tighe said that the pilots’ union had also decided to formally accept the Labour Court’s invitation for further exploratory discussions.
“We decided it was worthwhile and because of the events that have occurred, that are going to occur tomorrow, that both the company and the Labour Court will see the reasonableness of our claim,” he said.
But he added the work-to-rule will remain in place and tomorrow’s eight-hour strike will go ahead.
“There is an opportunity here. If it fails then an escalation would certainly be realistic,” he said.
Earlier, Fórsa echoed this sentiment.
“Should it fail, we are looking at a situation much worse than it is at present and a greater likelihood of escalating industrial action,” it said.
It come as another 122 flight cancellations were announced for next week as a result of the ongoing industrial action at the airline.
The latest tranche of cancelled flights are from Wednesday 3 July to Sunday 7 July and follow 270 cancelled flights from last Wednesday up to Tuesday 2 July arising from the work to rule by pilots and their planned eight-hour work stoppage tomorrow.
Aer Lingus said it was taking the step in order to continue to protect as many services as possible.
“These cancellations will be implemented today, and details will be communicated to impacted customers,” it said in a statement.
The airline added that those passengers impacted could either change their flights for free or claim a refund or voucher.
“These options will be communicated directly to impacted customers as well as travel agents, while the Aer Lingus ‘Travel Advisory’ page will also have up to the minute information on all the options,” it said.
“Aer Lingus fully understands the anxiety being experienced by customers given the uncertainty caused by IALPA’s industrial action and is giving impacted customers as many options as possible,” it added.
All Aer Lingus Regional flights, which are operated by Emerald Airlines, as well as Aer Lingus UK transatlantic flights to and from Manchester will operate as scheduled.
A full list of the impacted flights can be found on the Aer Lingus website.
On Tuesday, Aer Lingus and IALPA met separately with the Labour Court to see if negotiations could be progressed.
However, having met representatives for pilots and management, the court said it could not assist at that point.
But it did say that it would review the situation in July, which begins on Monday.
The Labour Court also requested that the dispute should not be escalated.
Tánaiste ‘appalled by impact’ of dispute
Meanwhile the Tánaiste said that both sides of the dispute between Aer Lingus pilots and management over pay need to get into a room and not leave until they have a resolution.
Micheál Martin said he is appalled by the impact the industrial action is having on the Irish economy and also the disruption that it is causing for so many passengers
He said some people are travelling for urgent reasons, as well as so many travelling for holidays with children at this time of year.
On Wednesday, the pilots began an indefinite work to rule in protest at the company’s handling of their claim for a 24% pay increase.
The pilots claim they have not had a pay rise since 2019 and the hike in wages is in line with increases in inflation since then.
But Aer Lingus is seeking productivity, flexibility and other work practice changes in return for the increase, because it says other employee groups in the airline have only received a pay increase of 12.25%.
Yesterday, the two sides met for face to face talks which lasted around five hours.
However, the talks failed to bridge the gulf between the two sides, despite IALPA claiming it had officially softened the size of its pay claim.
IALPA also claimed that Aer Lingus had taken a number of steps that amounted to an escalation of the dispute, including seeking the renegotiation of all collective agreements.
Aer Lingus denied that claim and said the reduction in the pay claim by IALPA was minimal.
It also urged IALPA to seek a mandate from its members to negotiate on productivity and flexibility as part of the discussions.