Onlookers can only pray as aviation goes under the knife
IRELAND’S aviation sector is undergoing radical surgery and, while it will survive, no one knows what quality of life it will have in the years ahead. Aer Lingus — now a subsidiary of aviation giant IAG — is, it would seem, using the opportunity to finally remove, once and for all, an unwanted appendage: the ability of its trade unions to dictate its business.
Sean Murphy, Aer Lingus executive director of HR and Dublin Airport operations, made it clear in a video message to staff last week that change is now essential and, in the post-Covid world, the days of long negotiations about that change with trade union officials are over.
The airline, he said, will be rebuilt “from the bottom up” as traffic returns. Staff who are willing to learn new skills will be given priority in this process, he said. “Individuals with the skills and the willingness to take on new skills will be given priority,” he said.
New methods of working, greater flexibility and increased use of technology have long been on the airline’s agenda but have sometimes — although not always — remained locked in the industrial relations process.
However, after outlining the extensive work practice changes that will be needed, Murphy delivered a surgical strike on the unions with this message to staff: “It is not a time to be distracted by the industrial agenda and a collective mindset. It is the time as an individual to make your own decisions. And when the time comes and you are called onto the pitch to perform, that you are ready and embrace that challenge.”
In days past, such a pronouncement from Aer Lingus management might have caused huge industrial relations problems.
But Murphy warned staff the challenge the airline faces right now is “many, many times worse” than challenges “that have rocked our business — September 11, the outbreaks of foot and mouth and Sars, the global financial crisis and volcanic ash”.
“We are 10 weeks into this crisis, 10 weeks into the toughest match we will ever play together. I never thought that we’d see our fleet grounded for such a long period. Gone is the smell of aviation fuel from the air and the noise of excitement in our terminals. That is why we had to make the difficult decisions in relation to headcount reductions and reductions in pay and hours.”
Murphy said that wage subsidies have helped, but “only contribute a fraction of the cash that leaves our business every week. Having a good business model and a valued history does not guarantee survival. Yes, we had cash reserves coming into this crisis. However, when nobody is buying your product and you continue to pay out for aircraft, buildings, loans and wages, that can’t last forever”.
So, in a bid to rebuild a more streamlined operation, staff will be asked to upskill, take on new tasks, multi-task, work differently and “sometimes we might have to have a frank conversation”.
“I am confident that those who embrace the changes required will continue to have a great future in Aer Lingus,” he said.
Just when that future begins is the big head-scratcher for everyone in the airline industry.
Senior well-informed people in the sector privately admit there is little prospect of that over the coming months with the twin problems of quarantines for arriving passengers and social distancing rules in airports greatly increasing complexity and reducing capacity.
Michael O’Leary, who would once have happily delivered a line like the one above about “the collective mindset”, went uncharacteristically quiet around the time Ryanair let trade unions in the door as part of its “Always Getting Better” plan to soften its image.
But O’Leary has found his voice again in recent weeks and is railing at the Irish and British governments — and their medical experts — for keeping in place measures that make profitable commercial aviation extremely difficult.
He particularly wants rid of any talk of a quarantine for arriving passengers. Face masks are the answer, he says, citing a document from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and European Aviation Safety Agency.
The airline is on the hook for €1bn in refunds to cancelled passengers. If it cancels the bulk of its passengers in July and August — many who would have booked long before Covid was a concern — it will need to add hundreds of millions more to this drain on its precious cash stash. It is hardly surprising O’Leary wants to fly as many of those flights as he possibly can, leaving the decision up to the passengers as to whether they should travel or forfeit their fare.
Nevertheless, it is not hard to find medical experts and even others in the airline industry who see any such reopening as difficult if not impossible in at least the short term.
O’Leary, of course, is not a doctor or an epidemiologist and is dependent on government attitudes to an epidemic now more under control but which could easily reignite, not least if widespread air travel resumes.
The Ryanair boss is answerable to his shareholders, but the scientists and medical people who make these decisions have a far wider and greater responsibility. So, in reality, O’Leary — a little like the trade unions when it comes to current goings-on at Aer Lingus — must now stand outside the door looking in.
Like an anxious relative at a hospital, he can rail about the bad news coming from the operating theatre and can quote whatever scientific evidence he wishes. But in the end the entire aviation sector is under the knife and its future is now in the hands of the doctors.