As many as 154 cabin crew are to lose their jobs at Aer Lingus. A recent meeting saw staff vote in favor of preventing Aer Lingus from hiring cheaper workers in the USA and the closure of certain bases.
The result is that 94 jobs will be cut at Shannon Airport, Dublin Airport and Cork Airport but Shannon Airport will be hit the hardest as they will suffer a loss of a further 60 workers in a arrangement their union has stated as painful.
200 ground handling workers have already left Aer Lingus in a deal with SIPTU which means that total redundancies now stand at 354. Impact (cabin crew union) stated that 59% of workers had voted in favor of the motion which would mean cutting the airlines costs by fifteen million Euro. Irish staff will continue to manage all transatlantic flights under the deal.
There were plans afoot to hire crews from the US to work on Aer Lingus flights to New York, San Francisico and Boston as well as hiring 1,300 workers outside the company for ground handling jobs. The emergency plan by SIPTU will now cut costs by 25 million euro with 80% voting in favor.
Aer Lingus announced a loss of 22 million euro this year with more losses predicted for next year. 420 job losses were likely before SIPTU and Impact became involved. Pay increases have been frozen until July 2010.