At least 244 Aer Lingus flights will be canceled next week due to industrial action by pilots, the airline has confirmed.
Earlier this week, the Irish Airline Pilots Association (IALPA) gave notice of indefinite employment from Wednesday 26 June as part of an ongoing pay dispute.
On Friday, Aer Lingus IALPA members said they now plan to go on strike on Saturday 29 June from 05:00 to 13:00 BST.
Aer Lingus said 120 flights were canceled on June 29 due to the strike, affecting 15,000 passengers.
Irish broadcaster RTÉ reported that the number of canceled flights could increase under the indefinite work regime for pilots.
Overall, the industrial action will affect more than 40,000 passengers who will fly with the airline between June 26 and July 2.
Aer Lingus said the cancellations would allow it to “protect as many services as possible for as many of our customers as possible”.
However, regional services to and from Belfast and Great Britain during this period “will not be affected by any industrial relations action and will operate as scheduled”, the airline said.
On Friday, Aer Lingus said in a statement that it is “dismayed that IALPA will further escalate this industrial action, following the previously announced insidious action”.
It stated that the strike is “clearly designed to inflict maximum damage on passengers’ travel plans”.
Aer Lingus said it will work to minimize disruption to passengers.
On Thursday, the airline announced that it would have to cancel between 10% and 20% of flights in the first five days of the action.
Canceled flights
The canceled flights are: short-haul Dublin to London Heathrow; Paris; Amsterdam; Lyon; Berlin; Birmingham; Brussels; Düsseldorf; Pomegranate; Frankfurt; Geneva; Hamburg; Manchester; Munich; Vienna; as well as short-haul Cork to London Heathrow and long-haul Dublin to JFK.
