News

Aer Lingus laying off 230 cabin crew

Tuesday, 9 March 2010 22:53

Aer Lingus has announced plans to lay-off 230 cabin crew following their rejection of a €97m cost-cutting plan.

The airline said its new plans, which were announced following a board meeting this morning, included new working conditions and salary levels.

Four of the five workers' groups at the company had voted to support the cost-cutting plan, but cabin crew rejected it by nearly two to one.

Aer Lingus Chief Executive Christoph Mueller said he has notified the Government of the 230 compulsory redundancies.

Mr Mueller said that the airline must respect the vote of the four workers' groups and would seek compulsory redundancies among the cabin crew who had voted against it.

There are currently around 1,000 cabin crew working at Aer Lingus.

The company is to move ahead with the implementation of its restructuring plan within a matter of days.

The cabin crew branch of the IMPACT trade union is to meet Aer Lingus management tomorrow to discuss the plan.

Earlier, the airline announced that it made losses of €81m in 2009 - a four-fold increase on the previous year.

In a trading update before the publication of its annual results, the airline said revenues fell by 11% to €1.205bn.

Aer Lingus said its passenger numbers during the year rose by 3.8% to 10.4m as its total capacity fell by 5.1%.

The airline said its average fares for the year declined by 16.8%. Ancillary revenues rose by over 16% to €173.9m. Fuel costs last year declined by 17.3% to €331.7m.