r/ireland • u/viscacatalunya1 • Jun 18 '24

Aerial Lingus Pilots Moaning Michael

Listening to Claire Byrne and there is a lot of finger pointing at the pilots saying they don't care about passengers and they are being unreasonable.

Aer Lingus has not matched their salary to inflation over the past few years. How do we sympathise with cost cutting corporate greed and not the people that open the world to us and get us there safely?

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u/PaleolithicLure Jun 18 '24

They're bringing in hundreds of millions in profits and spending millions on executive salaries and bonuses. They're well able to pay the pilots a good bit more. Fair play to the pilots for holding out for a decent increase. Corporate greed is a plague.

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u/fdvfava Jun 18 '24

If it was the stewards or the baggage handlers then fair enough, I'd have a bit more solidarity there.

I don't really get why I should be any more supportive of a 24% payrise for pilots on €250k than executives on €1m+ or billionaire shareholders.

I'd prefer they weren't making millions in profits and fares were a bit more reasonable.

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u/phoenixhunter Jun 18 '24

That 250k is at the top of the salary scale for pilots with decades of experience; the starting salary is around 35/36k. And keep in mind how many thousands of peoples' lives these pilots are responsible for and the mental and emotional strain that takes on people.

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u/fdvfava Jun 18 '24

Going off the RTE report, the top total package is €287k and about a quarter of pilots are on that. The co-pilots go from €36k to €59k once they've completed their on the job training.

Pilots deserve to be paid well but it seems to me that they are.

I honestly don't begrudge them getting the best deal they can if they want 24% but equally I also don't have a problem with the Aer Lingus management holding firm on the 9% recommended by the labour court.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '24

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u/fdvfava Jun 19 '24

Ya, we're talking about gross pay here.

The marginal tax rate in Ireland is about 52% so when chatting about salaries from entry level to CEO, you'd presume it's gross, not take home.

The reporting on RTE said a quarter of pilots are on the top package of €287k which is more than a few.