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By Daniel Baxter |
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January 25, 2011 - The Irish Municipal, Public and Civil
Trade Union (IMPACT) on Monday called on Aer Lingus
management to come clean about how much it is spending
on unnecessarily hiring aircraft and crews while it
sends willing cabin crew home and leaves its own
expensive assets lying idle.
IMPACT is a trade union in the The union estimated that the cost could currently be running at over $500,000 a day, but said it could be much more if aircraft and crews were hired for transatlantic flights. |
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The union
also said Aer Lingus had now hired outside staff to conduct
disciplinary hearings against cabin crew, adding to the cost of
the dispute. IMPACT said stakeholders - including staff,
customers and shareholders - had a right to know how much money
was being wasted, particularly when huge effort and sacrifice
had been made to keep the airline afloat, including pay cuts and
job losses.
The union
said mounting costs included the cost of hiring aircraft and
crews, which the union estimates could be in the region of
$50,000 for a European round trip and over $340,000 for a
transatlantic round trip. The union believes at least ten
aircraft per day are currently being hired.
In
addition the cost of refunds to passengers whose flights were
cancelled when management sent willing staff home last week, the
opportunity cost of idle Aer Lingus planes, which are expensive
capital assets, the cost of hiring outside staff to conduct
disciplinary hearings against cabin crew, the salary costs of
pilots left idle because hired planes come fully crewed and the
cost of running newspaper advertisments. An IMPACT spokesperson said staff and shareholders were paying a huge price for management?s misguided actions. ?By any standards, the cost of management?s actions are completely disproportionate to the issues that remain in dispute ? just 20 flying hours a year, or less than half an hour a week. We are challenging management to come clean and release verified figures on how much money it is wasting and the extent to which this will damage the bottom line when the next quarterly and annual figures are published.? |
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IMPACT has reported that cabin crew have been reporting for work but had been sent home by the company, causing flight disruption this week. ?Now, after cabin crew and other airline staff have worked so hard, and sacrificed so much, to make the airline a success in difficult times, the company is also wasting scarce resources to hire-in planes and crew when their own cabin crew are reporting for duty every day and expensive Air Lingus aircraft remain on the tarmac,? a spokesperson said.
Aer Lingus is the
flag carrier of On 1 Dec 2008, Ryanair launched a second takeover bid of Aer Lingus, making an all-cash offer of ?748 million (?619mil; US$950mil). The offer was a 28% premium on the value of Aer Lingus stock during the preceding 30 days. Ryanair said, "Aer Lingus, as a small, stand alone, regional airline has been marginalised and bypassed as most other EU flag carriers consolidate." The two airlines would operate separately and Ryanair claimed that they would double the Aer Lingus short haul fleet from 33 to 66 and create 1,000 new jobs. |
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