Aer Lingus is offering staff willing to take its redundancy package €7,000 per year of service up to a maximum of €70,000.
The State-owned airline announced details of its redundancy package today confirming it wanted to lay off 1,325 workers, offering them a minimum of €40,000 to take voluntary redundancy.
The company is determined to move to a low-cost model despite its return to profit in recent years following the crisis that threatened to bankrupt the company in 2001.
But chief executive Mr Willie Walsh insisted that competition in the future from no-frills operators like Ryanair and Easyjet, meant more rationalisation was required.
"There is no option but to face up to this market reality and to act decisively," Mr Walsh said.
He received the support of the Minster for Transport, Mr Brennan, who said that recent controversy over who will own the airline in the future is irrelevant in the context of the restructuring.
"Whoever it is that controls Aer Lingus at the moment efficiencies have to be found, and for whoever owns it efficiencies will continue to be sought - the issue is simple. It is nothing to do with ownership," he said.
A deadline of September 14th has been set by the company with Mr Walsh describing the offer as generous. "We anticipate that there will be considerable interest in the scheme."
But 90 per cent of Siptu members, which represents 2,300 of Aer Lingus's 4,000 workers, have already voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action over the plan, details of which emerged in the press in recent weeks.
While Siptu national industrial secretary, Mr Michael Halpenny, did not reject the terms outright, he warned that the union's co-operation would only be forthcoming if a number of other issues were sorted out.
"As far as we are concerned, there is no way that management would have offered a package such as this if the Union had not argued that this very profitable company could well afford such terms.
"We have always made it clear that negotiations on severance terms can only be agreed in the overall context of agreement on the scale of job losses, outsourcing, changes to existing work practices, remuneration for those remaining, the 14.9 per cent stake in the airline as promised under the last restructuring agreement — which has not yet been delivered on — and the future of the airline itself." Mr. Halpenny said.
Aer Lingus has shed 2,000 staff since 2001 saving €344 million and unions recognise that further redundancies will be required in order to keep the company competitive.
But the emergence of a management buy-out plan led by Mr Walsh has raised suspicions that the airline is being "fattened up" for full privatisation, which could compromise services on less profitable or loss-making routes particularly to and from region airports.
The Minister today said it "is imperative that the airline is in good shape".