Aer Lingus pilots expected to hold out for pay award

Aer Lingus pilots are expected to hold out for payment of the special Durkan pay award, worth up to €26,670 (£21,000) a year, as part of any settlement of the current row over redundancies at the company.

While the pilots have agreed to a pay freeze in line with other employees, none of them are likely to take up the voluntary severance and early retirement package unless those involved have the deferred increase factored into their pensions.

The issue is likely to be particularly important if senior captains are to be won over. The company wants the 80 pilot redundancies to include about 20 captains. Pilots were the only group of employees not to receive special pay increases last year. The deferral of the Durkan award is worth about €7.6 million a year in savings on salaries.

Meanwhile, the company deferred issuing up to 10 compulsory redundancies to junior co-pilots yesterday in order to engage in a new campaign to sell the existing package to all 540 pilots. Aer Lingus spokesman Mr Declan Conroy said it was "still our intention to issue the involuntary redundancy notices, but prior to that we want to ensure we clarify all the issues".

He declined to give a date for issuing compulsory redundancies, but the delay is expected to be only a couple of days.

As part of the sales campaign, Aer Lingus will point out to senior pilots that, if they received the same package as other employees, they might receive larger lump sums but they would have to accept retirement at 55. The current offer allows senior pilots aged 48 to retire with an immediate pension based on service.

Besides pushing for the inclusion of pay awards granted by the arbitrator Mr Gerard Durkan SC last year in pension calculations, pilots are likely to renew their demand for career breaks, job shares and redeployment as alternatives to redundancy.

They will argue that younger co-pilots deployed on clerical or administrative duties would not be paid much more than staff at the top of the scales for the relevant grades.

The company may be bargaining on the fact that the pilots, unlike other employees, did not engage in industrial action last year. IMPACT is meeting pilots next week to discuss industrial action if the compulsory redundancies are activated.