AER LINGUS informed 63 temporary cabin crew yesterday that their contracts would not be renewed due to cuts in services planned for its winter schedule.
The job cuts will affect 55 staff in Dublin and eight in Cork. Cabin crew were informed at meetings at both airports yesterday.
Aer Lingus currently employs about 1,500 cabin crew.
In response to the decision, Impact, the trade union that represents Aer Lingus cabin crew, said the airline had “reneged” on a “long-standing” agreement with its fixed-term contract workers.
The union has written to chief executive Christoph Mueller and asked for the decision to be reversed. “We have asked Aer Lingus to reconsider the decision, and we’ll await developments,” said Christina Carney, Impact’s assistant general secretary.
Enda Corneille, Aer Lingus’s corporate affairs director, said: “The reduction in cabin crew is due to the fact that our services this winter are being reduced and we have a surplus of staff.”
Aer Lingus is also working on a wider restructuring plan aimed at achieving €130 million in cost savings for an airline that made an operating loss of €93 million in the first half of 2009.
Ms Carney said Aer Lingus had reneged on a previous agreement that involved temporary staff with two years of services being offered permanent contracts. About 50 of the affected cabin crew have the required service. Ms Carney said these staff had been told as recently as February that the agreement would be honoured.
“We expected that the temporary workers would be kept on in line with our long-standing agreement but Aer Lingus has reneged on that.”
Mr Corneille said the temporary staff had been invited to apply for permanent positions at Aer Lingus’s new base in London Gatwick. Ms Carney disputed this, adding that the airline had deemed the staff “not to be suitable” candidates for the positions.
