AER LINGUS PILOTS are due to begin voting today on whether to accept a pay deal compromise put forward by the Labour Court after weeks of industrial action and deadlocked negotiations. 

Electronic voting begins this evening and will be open until next Tuesday. 

The pay deal, which has been endorsed by executives at the IALPA union, would see the pilots’ pay rise by 17.75% – short of the 24% rise the pilots had originally sought. Aer Lingus management has already accepted the 17.75% rise. 

After IALPA recommended its members accept the deal last week, the union immediately suspended work-to-rule action, which has been taking place since 26 June after negotiations over a pay increase with the airline reached an impasse.

Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland last week, IALPA president Mark Tighe said that it was a win for pilots.

“While it’s not quite the inflation that we were discussing, we’re looking at two years from now, pilots will be 19.2% better off than they were, which is some ways towards inflation,” he said. 

“We’re recommending it because we believe it’s a deal that the pilots can hopefully accept and we’ll move on. We’ve had a very successful time as a group of people, demonstrating our unity and strength together, and that’s vitally important moving forward.”