Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus has been accused of union-busting after cabin crew at its Manchester transatlantic base voted to go on strike in a dispute over wages and low allowances in expensive US cities.
Aer Lingus set up its long-haul base in Manchester, England, in 2021 to compete on transatlantic leisure routes against Virgin Atlantic following the collapse of Thomas Cook.
Although it might seem strange that Aer Lingus is serving Manchester with long-haul flights, while British Airways has shown no interest in doing the same, it’s worth mentioning that both airlines are owned by the same parent company.
Aer Lingus not only has the spare aircraft to develop a long-haul base in Manchester, but it also has much lower operating costs than British Airways, which are needed to make long-haul leisure flying a success.
One of the reasons for those lower costs, it now appears, is that cabin crew working for Aer Lingus in Manchester are being paid a lot less than their colleagues based in Dublin or BA’s long-haul cabin crew in London.
That’s something that cabin crew at the Manchester base are now desperate to change, and they have just voted in favor of taking strike action unless Aer Lingus significantly improves their wages.
Aer Lingus has already offered the 130 cabin crew based in Manchester an immediate 9% pay rise, followed by a 3% rise in 2016, and while the Unite union admits this seems generous, they claim that’s only because its members have been struggling to survive on their current wages.
The union also points out that those increases will only apply to basic wages, while overnight allowances for trips to expensive US cities like New York and Orlando will only increase by $15 to $130 per night.
Sharon Graham, the Unite union’s general secretary, warns that the strike action will cause serious disruption, although she also accuses Aer Lingus of union-busting activity.
If the strike does go ahead, Aer Lingus plans to use its Dublin-based crew to fly short-haul flights from Manchester to Dublin, where passengers would then be transferred onto long-haul planes for their transatlantic portion of their trip.
If the dispute can’t be resolved by the end of October, cabin crew currently plan to strike between October 30 and November 2.
Why can’t Aer Lingus just use Dublin-based crew to operate long-haul flights from Manchester?
Aer Lingus has come up with an inventive solution to mitigate the effect of a cabin crew strike by flying passengers to Dublin, but it does raise the question of why they don’t just get their Dublin-based crew to operate long-haul flights from Manchester.
The reason is down to the different Air Operator Certificates (AOC) that cabin crew for Aer Lingus work under. Aer Lingus has a British AOC that is permitted to operate flights from England to the United States, and an Irish AOC that permits the airline to operate flights from Ireland to the United States.
Dublin-based cabin crew are employed under the Irish AOC, so it wouldn’t be possible for them to fly to Manchester and start operating transatlantic strikes. There is, however, no restriction on Dublin-based crew operating shot-haul flights between Dublin and Manchester.
