Pilot salaries picked up by cost cutting radar at Aer Lingus

Christoph Mueller, the new Aer Lingus chief executive stepped into the cauldron of cost cutting in his first day at the helm of Aer Lingus today. Last week a group of pilots at the airline commenced a High Court action against the company for failure to pay an incremental salary increase worth 'several hundred euro' per month. The Irish Airline Pilot's Association has refused to comment on salaries as the case is now in front of the courts.
The Herald Newspaper this evening has reported that 66 flight crew at the airline are paid an average of €300,000 in salary and financial perks in addition to a pension to which they pay 9% and the company contributes 21%. Flight crew in the top earning bracket fly a total of 600 hours per year compared to the 900 hours per year flown by Ryanair crew.
Aer Lingus are denying reports in the press over the weekend that the airline was looking at divesting it'self of it's long haul operations in an effort to cut costs. The company is believed to be looking at a further 500 redundancies and is particularly keen to trim costs associated with the 590 strong pilot group.