DAA change deal elusive despite intensive talks

Staff should trust DAA on work changes or consider severance scheme, says CEO. Fearghal O’Connor reports

DAA has held more than 20 meetings with unions in the past fortnight but has failed to agree work-practice changes it is seeking.

The State-owned airport authority is seeking agreement on five key work-practice principles at Dublin and Cork airports as it looks to rebuild traffic to above 20 million. The changes mainly focus on rostering, flexibility around which terminal staff can be asked to work in and a commitment from staff to clean work spaces.

It is also seeking “expressions of interest” from staff regarding voluntary severance, career breaks or reduced working hours following the collapse in traffic at Irish airports. More than 90pc of staff — about 3,000 — had responded to say if they were interested in a scheme that could see hundreds leave the company, chief executive Dalton Philips told staff in a video update.

DAA would try to accommodate as many staff as possible, but it was “complex” because there were “certain areas where there are very high expressions of interest”, he said. Philips said agreement on new work practices was essential.

“The truth is, there is going to have to be a big level of trust on both sides here because we can’t detail everything in those five principles. For example, we are looking for changes in rosters, but I can’t tell you what the rosters are going to be next month, let alone next year. I just don’t know… none of us know, because we don’t know what the traffic patterns are going to be like. We don’t know which airlines are going to be coming in, we don’t know which routes they are going to be pushing, we don’t know if it’s going to be morning or afternoon.”

But Philips said that the company had over the last three years put staff welfare at the centre of what it does. “We’re not getting everything right. There is a long way to go. I’ve been saying that for a long time. But I want to put you first,” he said.

“So in terms of implementing those ways of working, we have got to try and agree the broad principles and push on on them. We won’t be able to get to the Nth degree.”

Philips said that if the company needed to detail its “new ways of working” to “the Nth degree we’ll be here for months. And if we are here for months we just won’t get a deal done and we won’t be able to get people back up to 100pc” [of their pre-Covid wages, from 80pc currently].

“There’s going to have to be a level of trust,” he said. “If that level of uncertainty is too great for you, well we have those options… career break, reduced hours working or, indeed, that voluntary severance scheme. So if you are uncomfortable with that level of trust, look at those three options. If you are happy to trust us, let’s try and agree these ways of working, let’s get it done, let’s welcome the passengers back.”

Dublin’s passenger numbers had gone from as low as 500 a day during the lockdown to about 14,000 a day but are still far below the more than 100,000 per day that would usually use the airport at this time of year. Fourteen airlines are now serving Dublin again, up from just seven during the lockdown. Three airlines are serving Cork with about 300 passengers a day.