The Board of Aer Lingus is to hold a special meeting next Monday to consider its general trading position. The meeting is expected to focus on the impact of foot and mouth, and of continuing industrial unrest at the airline. The entire Aer Lingus fleet will be grounded again tomorrow, as a result of a pay row with 3,000 SIPTU clerical and general operatives. A 24-hour stoppage was also staged last Friday and another one-day strike is scheduled for next Thursday, before the Bank Holiday weekend.
Aer Lingus has said that it believes incoming tourist numbers could drop by as much as 20% over the next three months, due to the foot and mouth crisis. It says that advance bookings for April to June are showing a drop of more than 20% on UK routes; of up to 15% from mainland Europe and under 10% from the US. It describes the indications as "very worrying".
Earlier, the Minister for Education, Michael Woods, called on the parties in the Aer Lingus dispute to go to the Labour Court in an effort to resolve their differences. Mr Woods made the call in the Dáil where he was standing in for the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. Replying to questions from the Fine Gael leader, Michael Noonan, and from Brendan Howlin of Labour, the Minister said that every effort was being made to resolve the dispute using the established industrial relations machinery.
