Anyone know whats the minimum allowed flight height for helicopters? The coast guard went over my house in the last hour must have been 2-300 feet. Shook the house
Minimum heights
(1) Except as permitted by the appropriate authority or as hereinafter provided aircraft shall not be flown -
(a) over congested areas of cities, towns or settlements or over an assembly of persons, at less than -
(i) a height of 450 metres (1,500 ft) above the ground or water, or
(ii) a height of 300 metres (1,000 ft) above the highest obstacle within a radius of 600 metres from the aircraft, or
(iii) such other height as would permit, in the event of the failure of a power unit, a safe forced landing to be made,
whichever height is the greatest
Even when the Boeings stay in the sky they’re still managing to kill people
We’ll be in lockdown this time next week
https://x.com/Shauns_Aviation/status/1797613614582440412?t=YiJgGe_WkmOHQDTgy8Ulig&s=19
IALPA not going to be popular. Maximum uncertainty and anxiety.
https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0620/1455716-aer-lingus/
Bastards. Hopefully sorted in the next week.
The comments
https://twitter.com/brianod_news/status/1804179415296860326?s=46&t=hy6wc4bLZMiyfotc20UniQ
It is but understandable. Hopefully brings quicker resolution to this as the pilots only have the strike as their last card.
‘This is not the way to go about getting a pay rise’ – Aer Lingus ground and cabin crew losing patience with pilots
Pilots becoming increasingly isolated as lower-paid colleagues fear they will bear the brunt of dispute
Pilots at Aer Lingus are becoming increasingly isolated from their colleagues as fears mount that the jobs of ground and cabin crew could be hit if industrial action continues to escalate.
Other staff expressed growing anger at the pilots’ solo-run in pursuit of a big pay rise, saying they were showing little regard for the impact on lower-paid colleagues who could be hit hardest by the inevitable fallout.
Trade union representatives of other staff at the airline have been slow to publicly criticise the pilots for escalating their demand for a 24pc pay rise to strike action. But privately they say there is growing unease and anger at the unfolding situation.
And there are mounting fears that Aer Lingus could issue protective notice to staff across the airline if the pilots refuse to back down from their hardline stance.
Yesterday, the airline cancelled 120 flights scheduled for next Saturday due to an eight-hour strike by pilots. This is in addiction to their open-ended work-to-rule due to start on Wednesday. It brings the total number of flights cancelled in the coming week to over 200.
The list of cancelled flights includes “all of the main holiday destinations”, with around 35,000 customers impacted.
As the mood darkened at Dublin Airport this weekend with the announcement of the one-day strike next Saturday, rumours swirled.
Ground staff worried they could lose out on bonus vouchers worth up to €400 and that all staff travel privileges would be withdrawn.
There was also speculation that a fleet of aircraft from Qatar Airlines — the biggest shareholder of Aer Lingus owner IAG — was being readied to plug gaps.
Airport police, said one source, had been told to “expect challenges” as a growing number of passengers miss flights in the days ahead. Aer Lingus ground staff fear they are on the frontline and will bear the brunt of an angry backlash from disrupted passengers.
“If the airline does a deal with pilots, that creates a knock-on effect and other staff will look for the balance,” said one experienced industrial relations practitioner.
“But the Labour Court is not going to retrospectively make any award and unravel a whole Pandora’s box in the economy and in Aer Lingus itself…. cabin crew, baggage handlers, check-in, the whole lot. They are just not going to do that and the pilots must know that.”
Neither would IAG risk unravelling agreements at its much bigger airlines, British Airways and Iberia, with a generous award to Dublin pilots for their hardline stance, he said.
“I would be worried that, if reason doesn’t prevail sooner rather than later, Aer Lingus will say ‘look, we can’t operate, we’re haemorrhaging money, we’re better off closing the airline for a while’.”
That, he said, could happen rapidly and could see staff placed on protective notice.
“This needs to get into the Labour Court quickly. But my worry is that there is a new leadership team at [pilots’ union] IALPA who are inexperienced negotiators and I think it’s beginning to show. If you wanted to negotiate yourself a 24pc pay rise, this is not the way to go about it.”
Another aviation industry expert agreed that IAG’s key focus will not be on Irish passengers but on how any compromise with Irish pilots will impact its relationship with pilots at BA and Iberia, making a deal much more difficult if the Aer Lingus pilots refuse to back down.
“IAG know that the British and Spanish pilots unions are watching this closely and that makes this very tricky,” said the industry expert.
“In the old days the unions could just keep leaning in until the political pressure got so big that a big cheque was written but that’s no longer possible. So in this scenario, if it were to go to the extreme, then IAG can simply decide to cut back its activities in Aer Lingus, particularly on the long-haul side. And that’s just bad for the country,”
The move by IAG to divert promised new Airbus aircraft to other parts of the group was an early warning of that, he said.
“I know IAG group and airlines generally are trying to chip away at the terms and conditions of entry-level pilots with a view to lowering the overall labour costs of pilots over the long term and that’s an ongoing battle,” he said.
“I can see why unions resist that. But it just feels as if the magnitude of the pilots’ demands, their willingness to reject the Labour Court and the timing of it in terms of people’s summer holidays, that’s pretty dangerous ground for pilots to be on.”
Trade union Fórsa, to which IALPA is affiliated, had been notably silent, said sources.
The union, largely made up of public servants, had previously found itself facing potentially huge legal costs due to its backing of IALPA in a dispute between Ryanair and its pilots. It will fear a repeat and last year showed little appetite to head to the picket line as air-traffic controllers looked set to down tools, instead convincing them to take a deal.
“This has to be a nightmare for Fórsa and it is hard to imagine they are happy. But the pilots always believe they are the smartest people in the room,” said a source.
A new leadership team had taken over the reins at IALPA last summer after a robust debate, with big promises to take a tougher stance in dealings with Aer Lingus management.
“I think that could be a problem. They’ve hyped themselves up so much that trying to negotiate them down to a sensible position could be difficult,” said the source.
On Friday evening, as the pilots made their move and called their first day of strike, management was making its own moves.
CEO Lynne Embleton released a video to staff saying it was “a difficult time for everyone”.
Ground staff and cabin crew also received a detailed Q&A memo to explain the details of the dispute and to counter the pilots’ assertion that it was now enjoying “bumper profits”.
Yes, it said, the swing from €700m losses to a €225m profit was “welcome”. But the financial results were the lowest in the IAG group and short-haul routes in particular were not “sufficiently profitable”.
The memo pointed out that the pilots had rejected a recommended 12.25pc pay deal, which was “similar to that which has been agreed by all other employee groups”.
Morale has been poor at the airline in recent years, with Covid taking a particular toll. Trade union power, once the dominant force, had been slowly but steadily eroded. But the memo from management on Friday had a notably collegiate tone and had struck a chord with some.
“I think a lot of what the company says is true,” said one senior cabin crew member after reading the memo.
She agreed that the pilots were becoming isolated and that their colleagues in other roles are growing increasingly unhappy with the action, fearful of the impact on their own jobs.
There was a feeling that pilots were acting selfishly and not considering how colleagues less able to take a financial hit would fare as they began to lose out on roster shift allowances and other payments.
“What they [the pilots] are doing is wrong. And most of the senior pilots I talk to don’t want this. They know they are not going to get 24pc but they are going along with it to be seen to support their junior colleagues,” said the cabin crew member.
Pilots may have convinced themselves that ratcheting up the pressure at the beginning of the school holidays could create an unstoppable dynamic towards a deal. But some believe that, as in the 2019 Ryanair dispute, legal action could become a factor.
In 2014, it was Aer Lingus that set a precedent when it went to the High Court and took legal action against an individual trade union official, seeking damages of as much as €3m, claiming that even the threat of strike had damaged its business.
The strike — which centred around pension issues that impacted all staff — never happened and the lawsuit was quietly dropped. But the move had a chilling effect on the trade unions, said sources.
Aer Lingus — whose legal counsel at the time was current chief corporate affairs office Donal Moriarty — had claimed that a ballot undertaken by Siptu had not been held in accordance with law.
Now, one veteran of such industrial relations standoffs believes the move by Aer Lingus in recent weeks to force pilots to reballot on technical grounds suggested the airline may be considering a similar case once again.
“But no industrial dispute was ever solved in the High Court,” said the source. “This dispute will of course be solved. But the way it will be solved is when everyone gets back into a process and starts talking a bit of sense.”
Above from the Indo, the spirit of William Martin Murphy lives on.
Let IAG sell it off to Michael O’Leary. That’ll sort it pronto