Aer Lingus will make history today with the start of its services from Belfast International Airport.
Belfast Internatinal Airport is the airline’s first ever base outside the Republic, and follows the company’s controversial decision to end flights between Shannon and Heathrow and to transfer the slots to the North.
Aer Lingus Group PLC faced a new strike threat Monday after Ireland’s largest labor union demanded that the airline abandon its new contracts for temporary employees.
The Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union said its members at Aer Lingus would walk off the job Nov. 20 and Nov. 23 if the airline didn’t restore the temporary workers’ previous pay and employment conditions.
source: IHT
Aer Lingus has announced plans to begin two new routes from Dublin and Cork next summer.
Direct flights will begin from Dublin to Ibiza and from Cork to Jersey.
The airline also plans to increase capacity on a number of its other flights, with services between Dublin and San Francisco, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Orlando operating on a year-round basis.
The airline also says it will fly from Belfast to Nice twice a week from April onwards.
source: independent.ie
Aer Lingus passengers look set to face disruption to their flights from next week as the dispute over the establishment of a new base in Belfast threatens to ground the airline.
The airline yesterday wrote to all of the airline’s 480 pilots asking them to confirm by next Monday that they would carry out duties to facilitate the opening of the new Belfast operation. Failure to do so would result in being suspended without pay, chief executive Dermot Mannion said in the letter.
The president of the Irish Airline Pilots’ Association (Ialpa), Evan Cullan, accused the airline of “‘a lock-out'”. Impact, the union that represents the pilots, said mass suspensions would effectively shut the airline down.
source: ireland.com
Aer Lingus said on Monday it would suspend pilots who failed to help the Irish airline recruit and train new staff at its planned new Belfast base, in a further dispute between workers and management.
Aer Lingus said in August it would transfer valuable Heathrow slots from Shannon to a new Belfast base in Northern Ireland.
The move has triggered strike threats by Aer Lingus pilots who fear staff in Belfast will be employed on lower pay than those in the Republic of Ireland.
source: iii.co.uk
Management at Aer Lingus has claimed that a decision by the company’s pilots to go on strike over the employment of new pilots at the proposed Belfast hub on lesser conditions than colleagues in Dublin was a “‘veto on essential progress,'” which was “‘unacceptable and deeply regrettable.'”
The company’s 480 pilots are to stage a 48-hour strike next Tuesday and Wednesday in protest at what they said were moves by the airline to employ pilots at its new base in Belfast on less favourable terms and conditions than those applying to staff in Dublin.
source: ireland.com
Aer Lingus is to launch a new low-cost service between London Gatwick and Dublin – taking on rival Ryanair.
The London Gatwick service will operate four times daily at times scheduled to suit both business and leisure travellers.
The schedule – which will include the first morning departure of any carrier from Dublin to London Gatwick – will complement Aer Lingus’ highly successful Dublin to London Heathrow service.
source: irishpost.co.uk
Aer Lingus, the Irish low-cost, low-fares airline today announced that it will commence scheduled services between Dublin and London Gatwick from the end of October 2007.
The London Gatwick service will operate four times daily at times scheduled to suit both business and leisure travellers. This schedule, which will include the first morning departure of any carrier from Dublin to London Gatwick, will complement Aer Lingus’ highly successful Dublin to London Heathrow service.
source: Easier
Ryanair Holdings PLC, Europe’s largest low-cost airline, said Tuesday that it expects the European Commission to block its euro1.48 billion (US$1.9 billion) hostile takeover bid for fellow Irish airline Aer Lingus PLC.
It claimed the decision — to be made before July 4 — was politically motivated and was designed to appease the Irish government.
Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said he planned to challenge an EU refusal to approve the takeover at the EU courts.
source: BW
Aer Lingus Group PLC said it is launching six new routes for this coming winter and adding capacity to some existing routes.
The Irish flag carrier said new services from Dublin to Helsinki, Bucharest, Agadir and Funchal will begin at the end of October, in addition to the restart of services from Dublin to Copenhagen and Cork to Munich.
source: Forbes
