Cabin crew at Aer Lingus have rejected a €97m cost reduction programme aimed at tackling the financial crisis facing the airline. The vote was 64% against on a 100% turnout.
The cabin crew union IMPACT had recommended approval of the measures.
Last week, management at the airline warned that if the deal were rejected, it would institute up to 1,100 compulsory redundancies and scale back services. In a statement, IMPACT said that statement had angered many Aer Lingus staff and had an 'extremely negative effect' on the vote.
Earlier, pilots at the airline voted in favour of the deal by a margin of four to one, as did administrative staff.
The package negotiated under the auspices of the Labour Relations Commission would have removed €74m from staff costs at the airline through a combination of redundancies, pay cuts, increment freezes and work practice efficiencies.
The ballot by ground staff represented by SIPTU will continue over the weekend.
Aer Lingus long-haul traffic falls again
Earlier, Aer Lingus reported another big fall in long-haul passenger numbers for February. The airline said its long-haul passengers slumped by 32.4% to 46,000 while its short haul passenger numbers slipped by 0.3% to 618,000.
Its total passenger numbers fell by 3.5% in February compared to the same time last year. The airline said it flew a total of 664,000 passengers last month, down from the 688,000 in February 2009.
The airline's load factor also fell last month, down 2.1 points to 69.9%, as capacity decreased by 8.2%.
Its short-haul load factor decreased by 6.7 points to 70.8% while capacity increased by 12.7% Its long-haul load factor rose by 3.4 points to 67.7% with capacity dropping by 37.5%.
