Aer Lingus confirms normal flight schedule after SIPTU withdraws strike threat
Aer Lingus has welcomed SIPTU's decision to withdraw its threat of industrial action at the airline next week.
The trade union has called off a two-hour work stoppage on Monday after accepting a proposal to attend the Labour Court for non-binding talks.
Aer Lingus said it would now focus on finding "an appropriate solution" to the €748m pension fund deficit.
"The company is now immediately re-engaging with the technical group of actuarial and legal advisors and with the Labour Relations Commission," the airline said in a statement.
"We can now confirm that we plan to operate our full schedule of services on Monday 19 November. We apologise to our customers for the uncertainty of recent days."
SIPTU's Dermot O'Loughlin said of the up-coming Labour Court talks: "The company have said they're not going into it on the basis of it being binding. Accordingly, we're not going into it on the basis of it being binding.
"I'm just hoping that this process doesn't turn out to be a charade because we will be back in this unfortunate place, if it turns out that we can't get robust and fair outcomes at the Labour Court."
