Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue.

Aer Lingus is a publicly quoted company and decisions regarding its employees and bases are commercial matters for the board and management. As Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, I have no role in such decisions. For that reason what I can say is somewhat limited. While the State retains a 25% shareholding in Aer Lingus, this does not allow it to become involved in the day-to-day commercial operations of the company. However, the Government is committed to the new independent Shannon Airport company being a success and sustaining employment opportunities in the mid-west. The closure of Aer Lingus's Shannon Airport cabin crew base would be very regrettable and the Government urges the relevant parties to make every effort to reach agreement in order that the base can remain open.

Last July Aer Lingus announced a significant expansion of its transatlantic routes and capacity for 2014. This included very positive developments for Shannon Airport, since one element is that Aer Lingus's Shannon-Boston and Shannon-New York services will resume during the winter months in 2014. The company had ceased operating these services for part of the winter season in recent years as they had proved loss-making for it when operated with large A330 aircraft, as opposed to the narrow-body aircraft that it will now use. The resumption of year-round services will, according to Shannon Airport, result in a 25% increase, or 50,000 additional passengers, on Aer Lingus transatlantic flights in 2014. With other new Aer Lingus European routes out of Shannon Airport, this was welcomed as an indication of the airline's continued commitment to the airport.

In addition to increased services at Shannon Airport, Aer Lingus announced new year-round direct services to San Francisco and Toronto from Dublin Airport in April 2014. These new services were welcomed by all concerned when first announced last summer, in particular by the inbound tourism industry and the many IT employers in the country with close links with the Silicon Valley area. Providing a year-round direct service to Shannon Airport for tourists inbound from the USA will provide a major boost for the local tourism industry and the wider western and mid-western regions. These new services have been made possible because Aer Lingus is leasing three smaller Boeing 757 aircraft from another Irish airline, Air Contractors. It was originally announced that Air Contractors would supply the aircraft and that the crew would be Aer Lingus employees. The company began the recruitment process for additional cabin crew for this purpose.

Agreement for these new arrangements had been reached with the company's pilots and cabin crew represented by SIPTU. However, on 24 October it was announced that the company had failed to reach agreement with IMPACT cabin crew. As I understand it, the dispute focuses, in particular, on cabin crew numbers on the smaller Boeing 757 aircraft. Aer Lingus is proposing to crew the aircraft with four cabin crew and has received regulatory and safety approval for doing so. Other issues such as the cabin manager grade and rostering have also been raised by IMPACT. It is reported that Aer Lingus believes IMPACT's objections to the new arrangements would make the Shannon Airport cabin crew base commercially unsustainable for the company and that it would have little choice but to close the Shannon Airport base and request Air Contractors to provide cabin crew for the Shannon-US services. In response to this, on 4 November it was announced that the IMPACT cabin crew had balloted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action in the order of 91%. The ballot was of all IMPACT cabin crew in the State. The company has not yet been served with notice of industrial action.

The LRC has had contacts with both sides and it was announced earlier today that they had been invited to meet it this Friday in an attempt to find agreement in the dispute. The Government strongly urges both sides to use the available industrial relations machinery of the State to reach agreement on the matter as soon as possible in the interests of the travelling public, staff and the company. Industrial action in the company could be very disruptive for passengers in the run-up to Christmas and very damaging for the company. It would be very regrettable if the boost the Shannon region would get from the increased Aer Lingus services at the airport were to be marred by a reduction in the numbers employed at the airport owing to an industrial relations dispute.

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