120 flights canceled at 3 Irish airports as air traffic controllers protest for pay raise

120 flights canceled as Irish controllers protest

DUBLIN — More than 120 flights in and out of Ireland were canceled Wednesday when air traffic controllers staged a four-hour walkout in a bid for higher pay — a protest that elicited little support outside the trade-union movement.

Government and business leaders condemned the controllers’ protest as selfish at a time when cash-strapped Ireland is battling record debts, cutting pay and slashing jobs.

The government’s minister for trade and commerce, Billy Kelleher, said the controllers’ decision to shut down the runways at the nation’s three main airports had ruined travel plans for 20,000 people and was “further undermining Ireland’s economic viability and reputation.”

The Irish Aviation Authority employs 300 controllers at Ireland’s airports in Dublin, Cork and Shannon. In 2007, as part of a national wage-pact deal, the authority promised the controllers a 6 percent raise.

But the authority has put that raise on hold until at least 2012 once Ireland’s deepening recession unraveled the wage pact. It also pressed controllers to begin making payments into their own guaranteed pension funds, a sacrifice already made by most sectors of the Irish work force.

The controllers’ union, Impact, warned that its members would cause more runway shutdowns unless the aviation authority abandons its pension-money demands and delivers the pay increase now. The union also seeks extra pay for controllers to use recently upgraded air-traffic-control technology.

Liam Kavanagh, the Irish Aviation Authority’s head of human resources, said the controllers were being greedy and unreasonable.

Kavanagh said on average each controller received euro160,000 ($225,000) in salary and company-funded pension payments, worked 35-hour weeks with frequent half-hour breaks, and got 46 days’ vacation and 137 rest days a year.

He said the Irish-based airlines, principally loss-making Aer Lingus and cutthroat but profitable Ryanair, funded the authority’s work in full.

“The airlines cannot afford to pay any increases in the current economic climate. The aviation industry is on its knees,” he said.

Aer Lingus said it canceled 64 flights Wednesday, Ryanair 48, and small regional airline Aer Arann five. Scores of other flights were delayed for hours, with many midmorning flights rescheduled for the evening.

International flights that normally travel through Irish air space also had to alter their routes, avoiding Ireland, during the disruption.

Aer Lingus — which has been cutting its own pay levels and staff in a bid to return to profit — said it supported the authority’s stand against the controllers’ demands. Ryanair lambasted the controllers as “overpaid and underworked,” and called on grounded customers to phone and e-mail complaints to the Impact union headquarters.

The Irish Business and Employers Confederation, which represents 7,000 employers nationwide, said it was “outrageous that the public is being held to ransom in this way.”

Transport Minister Noel Dempsey told lawmakers the government would consider making it illegal for air traffic controllers and other providers of emergency services to strike.