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Today with Clareburn on RTE Radio

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1, sponsored by Cash & Carrie

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Erlingus is reportedly reaching out

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to other airlines in its

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bid to minimise the impact

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of forthcoming industrial action. However,

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many tourist business here are

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expressing concerns about the knock-on

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economic impact between existing holidays

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being disrupted while other visitors

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decide to avoid Ireland entirely

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and holiday elsewhere. For more on

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this, I'm joined first by Brian

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O'Donovan, RTE News' work and technology

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correspondent. So, Brian, what is the

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latest on this dispute? Where are

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things at this morning? Yesterday

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evening, Clare, we saw Erlingus move from a position

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of saying that cancellations would be likely to say

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that there definitely will be cancellations if this work

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to rule goes ahead from Wednesday. And of course,

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the problem there is that we don't know which

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flights would be cancelled and we don't know when.

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And that's the problem with a work to rule

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as opposed to a strike. With an all-out strike,

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everything's cancelled, everything's grounded. But with a work to

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rule, you really don't know how it's going to

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impact. So you could see a scenario on Wednesday

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when this action gets underway that everything takes off

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perfectly normally in the morning, but as the day

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goes on, there are delays, there are issues.

1:14

If the pilots start slipping into overtime,

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they won't work overtime. That's part of

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the work to rule. Then the cancellations

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will hit. Also, where Erlingus warning that

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there would be a cumulative effect. So it

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might be bad on Wednesday. It might be

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worse on Thursday. And then it might be

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really bad by Friday. And it's going to

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build, build and build. And remember, this work

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to rule will involve pilots refusing to engage

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in overtime, refusing to do additional duties outside

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of their normal hours, refusing to log on

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to airline portals and refusing to take work

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calls outside of their hours of work. And

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all of those things potentially will lead to

1:47

massive disruption because at this time of year,

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airlines are very reliant on their pilots being

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very, very flexible, coming in on the

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day off, coming in at last notice. All of

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that will stop from Wednesday of next week. that

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Erlingus might be leasing aircraft.

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Will that, Brian, result in

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the dispute becoming even more

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entrenched? It could do,

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because what we're going to see now is

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Erlingus reaching out to everybody. They're going to

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reach out to their partner airlines. Remember, they're

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part of this huge group IAG with Vueling,

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Iberia and British Airways, so they will certainly

2:18

be reaching out to their friends. They'll also

2:20

be reaching out to their enemies. They'll be

2:22

going to their arch-rivals, Ryanair, and seeing what

2:24

they can do to accommodate people. And they

2:26

have said that. They will say, look, we

2:28

will do whatever it takes to re-accommodate people

2:30

as best we can. But as I mentioned

2:32

earlier, worst time of the year for that,

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Claire, because all those other planes are going

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to be booked by those airlines. So it's

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going to be really, really difficult. And yes,

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they will look to higher-end external crews. They

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will look to higher-end external aircraft. But they're

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also all booked. So of course, and this

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is why Iberia doing it at this time

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of year, it is designed to create maximum

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disruption. So it's going to be a very

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difficult picture. Erlingus saying, look, the best thing

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you can do right now is go on

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to the homepage. And when you go on

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to the Erlingus homepage, there's a big orange

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banner across the top saying travel advisory. Click

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into that. That will have the most up-to-date

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information. And if you do click into that,

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it has some information. There's no flights cancelled

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or delayed yet. Remember, as a result of

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this, because they just don't know also what

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you'll get there. There was the information for

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passengers in terms of their rights when it

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comes to refunds, re-accommodation. And the advice for

3:19

passengers right now, who absolutely must be extremely

3:21

nervous, particularly if they're flying next Wednesday, is

3:23

don't cancel your flight, because then you're effectively

3:25

letting Erlingus off the hook. And you won't

3:27

get the re-booking. You won't get the re-accommodation.

3:29

You won't get the compensation that you would

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if they were to cancel your flight. And

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remember, your flight may not be cancelled. Flights

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will be operating, but there will be some

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cancellations and there will be disruption. And a

3:39

disruption there that will build and build and

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build for as long as this work-to-rule goes

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on. And we don't know when customers might

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have sight of that, of what that disruption

3:47

looks like. Absolutely. And I

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said it to Erlingus yesterday. So let's say on

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Tuesday, will you be able to say that tomorrow's

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2 o'clock, Timelan is gone? They said maybe not.

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Because maybe everything will take off perfectly normally in

3:58

the morning and everything will run. Because remember the

4:00

pilots will be turning up for work. They will

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be beginning their shifts. Everything will start. But you

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don't know if there's gonna be a storm in

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Spain or some other issue in some other airline

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and then there's some problem, there's a delay. All

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of a sudden the pilots hours starts ticking into

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overtime. All of a sudden someone calls in sick.

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All of a sudden somebody is needed at last

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minute. That's when the work to rule kicks in.

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And that's when it gets very, very difficult and

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very, very complicated. And in terms of any negotiations

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and in terms of any returns to the talks

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table, we know that there were no negotiations yesterday.

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There were no negotiations today. Two of the lead

4:30

negotiators at IALPA had to work. Their pilots, that's

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the day job. They weren't relieved from their duties

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yesterday or today, such as the demand for pilots

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right now. And we know these two sides are

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very, very far apart. I know you've heard these

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numbers a lot, but it's worth repeating them again.

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Pilots rejecting a labor court interim recommendation

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of nine and a quarter percent. A

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far, far cry from the almost 24%

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they're looking for. Pilots

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saying we are entitled to this. This

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is inflation linked. We've sacrificed a lot

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during COVID to sustain this airline. And

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Aer Lingus is making big profits. They

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can well afford it. Aer Lingus saying

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absolutely not. These pay demands are exorbitant.

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They're outrageous. They're untenable. And you're not

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getting 24%. Brian

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O'Donovan bringing us up to speed there. Let's

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talk about some of the potential impacts of

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this action. I'm joined firstly by Porik Okejia,

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who's former owner of Air Arran and founder

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of Aer Lingus Regional. Porik, thanks for joining

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us this morning. Now there has been a

5:23

big focus on the people who want to

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leave Ireland to go on holidays and the

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impacts on them. But this work to rule

5:30

by Aer Lingus pilots, it could have a

5:32

huge effect on inbound tourism, couldn't it? What

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do you think this might mean

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for Ireland's reputation in an important market

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like the United States, for example? Yeah,

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it's the last thing we need right now, right

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after COVID, particularly for regional Ireland, Claire.

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Because the big thing is from our point

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of view, from regional Ireland's perspective, US

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tourists are the big one for us. One

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in every four tourists that

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comes to Ireland from the US. They

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spend more time here, they spend more

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money here than they do from tourists from other

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countries per day. And in actual

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fact, Ireland, the single biggest industry in

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rural Ireland, there's

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over 250,000 people employed, is

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tourism. And they're totally dependent

6:16

on June, July and August.

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And foreign tourism, tourism coming

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from abroad is absolutely critical.

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And people, Brian, give

6:25

a great introduction there when you give an

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outline in relation to the issues and challenges

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and what's happening is, actually work to

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rule is more damaging than actually a

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strike. Because work to rule, you don't

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know if you get into Ireland,

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are you going to get out when you want to

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go home, back home again or whatever. So it's hugely

6:44

significant, hugely, hugely worrying for

6:47

regional Ireland in particular. So

6:50

one of the things I've been pushing for

6:52

a while, I'm sure you know, Claire, is

6:54

that we really need to have balanced air

6:56

transport growth in Ireland. And therefore the regional

6:58

airports like Cork, Shannon and Nock need

7:01

to be developed a lot, lot more. For

7:04

a whole lot of reasons, this

7:06

one would be one that would actually

7:08

reduce the damage caused to regional Ireland. Because

7:10

I believe regional Ireland and Ireland and passengers

7:12

as a whole are being held at hostage

7:14

in relation to all of this. Well,

7:17

we know that, you know, places

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like Dublin would probably be able to

7:21

withstand the impact of something like this,

7:23

because you're going to have strong tourism

7:26

numbers anyway. But if you're dealing with

7:28

potential outcomes for places like the west

7:30

of Ireland, for Kerry

7:32

potentially as well, for Donegal,

7:35

there is probably going to be an off-putting

7:37

impact when it comes to future bookings here

7:40

with something like this, would you say? Yeah,

7:43

100%, 100%. And the

7:46

single biggest industry in places like

7:48

Kerry, Connemara and Donegal is tourism.

7:51

And it actually creates

7:53

an economic benefit pretty deep into the economy.

7:55

So it's not just proliferative, it's not just money

7:57

coming in and going out. like

8:00

that is money really going deep

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into the economy. And we're going

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to have lost, we lose a

8:06

significant amount of that, which is

8:09

devastating for rural Ireland. And you

8:11

just mentioned, well, indirectly mentioned Dublin

8:14

there. It will

8:16

probably hit rural Ireland much

8:19

more so than Dublin, because in Dublin, the tourism point

8:21

of view, people come in for a weekend, they come

8:23

in for a shorter period of time. But

8:26

when they come to rural Ireland, they tend

8:28

to stay much longer. And

8:30

that's the important part of it. Okay.

8:32

All right, Porik, thank you very much for

8:34

your time. That's Porik Ocaje there. Niall Callaher

8:37

is Fianna Fáil mayor of Killarney and former

8:39

chair of the Chamber of Commerce in the

8:41

town. Niall, good morning to you. How concerned

8:43

are people where you are about the potential

8:46

impact of this work to rule and any

8:48

further industrial action that may follow? And

8:52

good morning, Clare. The people that I

8:54

represent here in Killarney and in the

8:56

Weillar Kerry community are exceptionally concerned. And

8:59

Porik and Brian have outlined this in

9:01

great detail, the travesty

9:04

that this could have on the tourism

9:06

industry in rural parts of

9:09

Kerry, Connemara, Donegal and

9:11

the West Coast. The difficulty here is that

9:13

probably up to 70% of

9:17

the North American market is flying

9:19

in here via

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lingus, my apologies. And

9:24

the difficulty that we

9:26

find ourselves in, we're talking about a

9:28

Kerry tourism season of 10 to

9:30

12 weeks. And

9:32

we're right at the start of that now. And

9:34

the knock-on impact it has on the employment and

9:38

the greater economy, the investment that comes

9:40

into the tourism product as a result

9:42

of this business that is done over

9:44

the next 10 weeks is quite

9:46

large. But there are no impacts

9:48

being felt right now. This is all a potential.

9:51

This is all what people perceive

9:53

might happen down the line, right?

9:57

More certainly, Clare, but I think it's important too.

10:00

people understand what impacts it

10:02

could have. Talking to

10:04

one person very involved in the tourism

10:06

industry in Killarney this morning,

10:08

this has as bad as impact as

10:10

what COVID has been on the

10:13

tourism industry and the ash clouds and many

10:15

more we've seen this and

10:17

the impact it has on the tourism industry

10:19

at different times. But this is, you

10:22

know, Killarney has

10:24

a longer tourism season than most,

10:26

that is quite well-admitted.

10:29

But other parts of the west coast,

10:32

they have 10 weeks of a tourism season and

10:34

lucky to have it. And

10:36

that is the biggest single impact that

10:38

it will create in the knock-on

10:40

effect of what may happen as

10:43

a result of the

10:45

worked rule from Wednesday onwards.

10:48

So you mentioned the importance of the North

10:50

American market. It makes up 70% of the

10:52

visitors and the spend that you have there.

10:54

But there are other flights that you're concerned

10:56

about as well from coming in from Europe.

10:59

Well, yeah, look certainly, there's a,

11:01

you know, the weekend

11:03

stays, the many other trips from

11:05

the French to German markets and

11:08

many others. It's quite a

11:11

varied market of what we have. It

11:13

is fair to say that the North

11:15

American market is very buoyant at the

11:17

moment. And it

11:19

will also have that potential for the

11:21

knock-on effect because people will be buying

11:23

now for next year and

11:26

seeing this situation

11:28

will cause a little bit of issue

11:31

and concern. So most certainly

11:33

it is something that we would very

11:35

much hope that talks

11:37

would resume and every effort to be

11:39

put in place to avert as

11:42

much disruption to what is very important.

11:44

Look, we've just come out of debt

11:46

warehousing. The tourism industry has been very

11:49

much affected over the last

11:51

number of years, COVID and many other instances,

11:53

the cost of living and the

11:55

pressures that are there. Our domestic market is

11:57

down, you know, that

12:00

it will also impact people leaving. And

12:02

you've said that earlier in your introduction,

12:05

going on holidays to the likes of Spain

12:07

and Portugal and other areas. So there's

12:09

a massive knock on impact in relation

12:11

to the entirety of this on a

12:14

sector that's already under pressure.

12:16

Niall Callaghanher, thank you for joining us. That's

12:18

the mayor of Killarney there. Let's get

12:20

a view from Galway. I'm joined on the

12:23

line by Sheena Dignam, who's owner of Galway

12:25

Food Tours. Good morning, Sheena. Good

12:28

morning, Claire. This is coming into your busy

12:30

time, I know, as well. Are you very

12:32

reliant on visitors from abroad? Yes,

12:34

we are. We're operating around seven tours

12:37

a day, and the majority of them

12:39

would be American coming

12:41

in on Erlinga's flights. So,

12:43

yes, I am very, very worried.

12:45

So you're concerned that this might just

12:48

lead to cancellations of your tours because people

12:50

will be nervous about getting on those flights.

12:52

Is that where your fears lie? Yes,

12:55

but also the knock on effect that

12:57

it will have and the last minute

12:59

effect that it will have. I have

13:01

10 employees that I've... that

13:04

we rostered tours for, and we just find it

13:06

very difficult to then be able to... we'll have

13:08

to refund money for these people, of course, because

13:10

it's out of their control and

13:13

out of ours. And then trying to

13:15

reschedule these tours and just the logistics

13:17

of it all. And we're

13:19

the last, I suppose, cog in the

13:21

chain where people will have to be...

13:25

they'll have to rebook their hotels, first

13:27

of all, and then the last thing

13:29

would be their experiences and these type

13:31

of tours. Yes, because if you think

13:33

about it, if you have had your

13:36

travel plans disrupted, you're going to first

13:39

and foremost deal with your flights, then you're going to

13:41

deal with your hotel. As you say, last on your

13:44

list is going to be the tour. So you might

13:46

get very late notice of cancellations. Yes,

13:48

yes, I suspect so. And we won't know

13:51

until I've been reaching out to the travel

13:53

agencies, and they're also very... they

13:55

don't know what to expect either, and obviously

13:57

they're not going to be cancelling anything until...

14:00

until it gets to crunch time, which would be very

14:02

late in the day. And is there a way for

14:04

you to make up the business? I know you do

14:06

very well, obviously, in the

14:08

summer months, but do

14:10

you do get business in the off-peak and

14:12

the shoulder months too, do you? Yeah,

14:15

we're very lucky in Goa, whether we have

14:17

a lot of corporate businesses that are based

14:19

here, so we do get that on through people

14:22

coming to join our tours for those

14:25

corporate events. But it

14:27

is, I'm not going to lie,

14:29

April till September would be

14:31

our tourism season, and then it

14:33

kind of tickers off.

14:36

And I just have these 10 people

14:38

that are with me and I need

14:40

to give them, they have to make

14:43

rent at the end of the day.

14:45

And it's their busy time and they're working

14:47

all the iris on the sun to be

14:49

able to survive the

14:51

winter, if you know what I mean. Yeah, well, look,

14:53

Sheena, I hope you get some clarity soon and thank

14:55

you for joining us this morning. Sheena Dignam is owner

14:58

of Galway Food Tours. Earlier we spoke

15:00

to Poirier-Cajé, Niall Callaghan, and RTE's

15:03

Brian O'Donovan. And any news we get, any

15:05

developments on that, we'll bring them to you

15:07

over the course of the morning. Coming up

15:09

next, two more high-profile Green Party

15:12

members tell us who they're backing in the

15:14

race to replace Aemon Ryan.