Aer Lingus boss warns recovery is ‘years away’

Job losses on hold for now but airline seeks major work-practice changes, writes Fearghal O’Connor

AER Lingus chief executive Sean Doyle is seeking a “change agenda” from trade unions and warned them it is “likely to take years” for air travel to recover to 2019 levels.

An expected redundancy programme — with recent reports suggesting 900 job losses — would not happen until later this year and would be based on the success of this change agenda, as well as the airline’s “resourcing need”, according to an update sent to staff by trade union Siptu.

The airline had agreed to continue paying 50pc of wages until June 21 when it would cut this to 30pc of wages — although this would be in return for agreement on the change agenda.

The airline has sought major changes in work practices from staff — including the removal of demarcation — to deliver what Doyle described in a letter to ICTU industrial officer Liam Berney as “structural and lasting change”.

The Aer Lingus boss warned “the pace at which recovery of air travel is likely to occur will be slow” and was unlikely before 2023. “We must also consider that the industry that returns will be vastly different in many respects from what we previously knew, be that from the perspectives of regulation, logistics, operations and competition.”

The Aer Lingus approach to a return to normality is much less bullish than Ryanair’s promise to restore 40pc of its scheduled flights by July 1. In his letter, Doyle noted a comment by the ICTU official that whilst the current situation was challenging, Berney believed it to be “temporary with improvement likely later this year”.

The Aer Lingus CEO told Berney that the company was also hoping for “the earliest possible return to air travel. Given that we are currently operating only 5pc of our schedule, a meaningful return is essential”.

But Doyle said that what that return looked like would depend on “the size and duration of the immediate challenge and the permanent legacy it will undoubtedly leave”.

“The clear messaging to date from Government as advised by Nphet and indeed quarantine measures such as those proposed by the UK government, offer little by way of confidence of any meaningful increase over the medium term. Therefore the prospect of the improvement that you refer to in your letter is very uncertain,” he said.

“This presents us with a very immediate challenge in that we have significant immediate costs, including people costs — and little operations or incoming revenue. We are significantly over-resourced in most parts of our business for our existing level of operations. Therefore, there is an imperative to take further immediate steps.”

An Aer Lingus spokeswoman told the Sunday Independent that it was “continuing to engage with the relevant representative bodies and communicate directly with our employees”.