Aer Lingus to cancel 20 flights to Britain and Europe

AER LINGUS is to cancel 20 flights today as the current dispute with cabin crew over rosters continues to escalate.

AER LINGUS is to cancel 20 flights today as the current dispute with cabin crew over rosters continues to escalate.

The bulk of the flights affected are to British and European destinations.

However, the airline said a service to Boston tomorrow would also be hit.

The airline cancelled 20 services – 10 return flights – yesterday as a result of the dispute.

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Aer Lingus has also called seven members of cabin crew to a disciplinary meeting over their refusal to operate rosters, which it introduced unilaterally a fortnight ago.

The disciplinary meeting is the next stage in a process which could, ultimately, see the seven staff dismissed. They all attended investigation meetings with company management last week.

The new disciplinary process will start tomorrow.

The airline said it had now removed about 300 members of cabin crew from the payroll for refusing to operate the rosters.

A spokesman for the trade union Impact, which represents the cabin crew, said the move to call staff to attend disciplinary meetings was not unexpected.

However, the spokesman said it was not helpful to the process which was currently under way at the Labour Relations Commission aimed at finding a resolution to the dispute.

He said the union’s focus was on achieving a successful outcome to the talks at the commission.

Talks at the LRC restarted yesterday morning.

Initial discussions had ended on Friday night without any agreements.

However, the process got under way again yesterday morning following contact by LRC officials with the parties over the weekend.

Aer Lingus has said that the new rosters are essential for it to secure increases in flying hours for cabin crew which had been agreed under an overall cost-saving plan across the airline known as Greenfield.

However, cabin crew have argued that the rosters are overly onerous and are not family friendly.