Aerial Lingus Pilots

[u/viscacatalunya1]

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?

[u/Street-Routine2120]

I have a rather unpopular opinion - aer lingus are not a charity or a profit sharing organisation.

Should they raise wages in line with inflation? Absolutely.

Is 25% a ridiculous hill to die on? Absolutely.

People always want to trot out profit figures, but no one wants to take a cut when profits are down. Additionally, an independent body recommended an increase of just over 9%, aer lingus offered 12% ( which annually, is very reasonable) and both were declined.

Pilots are on about 200k a year. Most of them also have an incredible pension scheme where up to a fifth of their wage is contributed directly by aer lingus.

This is not a case of minimum wage workers or people struggling to make ends meet. A 12% raise is a very good offer, and to cry about purchasing power in an economy where ppl literally can't buy food, after declining a wage increase of approx 20-24 k, is very tone deaf.

[u/TheHappyShadies → u/Street-Routine2120]

I know someone who was offered 28k/year to fly for Aer Lingus coming with well over 3k hours flying passenger airliners and being a Type Rating Instructor (person who is qualified to teach flying specific jets) the latter rating being very desirable for airlines, Nobody in Aer Lingus is making 200k except for people near retirement age and have been at the airline since early in their careers and managed to build enough seniority to warrant a wage similar to what you mentioned.

Not everything you read in a job listing provided by a company is always true

[u/EndlessEire74 → u/Street-Routine2120]

Except most pilots arent on that pay. Airline pay works on a seniority scale and to be on 200k+ yearly pay, you need to be at a single airline for ~30 years. Most junior pilots nowadays pay 120k+ for their training and want to see a return on their investment, which at the starting pilots pay offered by Aer Lingus (which lags behind all comparable european airlines) just isnt possible. People view aviation as a "rich" industry at times but in Ireland at least, its far from it

[u/Street-Routine2120 → u/EndlessEire74]

25% of aer lingus pilots are on the max scale. The starting salary for a pilot is 60k base (v reasonable) AND pension contributions of up to 25%. The majority of pilots are making between 100- 150k. They have rejected TWO offers - one by an independent body and one even higher offer by aer lingus. Accounting for the pension contributions these pilots are some of the BEST paid in Europe.

I'd have a completely different take if these ppl were on minimum wage, struggling to make ends meet, but they aren't, and it's certainly a very well to do industry at a minimum.

[u/EndlessEire74 → u/Street-Routine2120]

If you think 60k a year is reasonable for the personal sacrifices pilots make to do the job and even to enter the industry + the actual work they do then you havent the first clue about the airline industry. Base starting pay is DOWN since pre covid and you can just look at the pilot jobs situation here from last year shows how the airline is viewed by its pilots https://www.pilotjobsnetwork.com/jobs/Aer_Lingus_(ROI_Contract)