Aer Lingus pilot has lost out on €250,000 in alleged ‘sham’ disciplinary process, WRC told

Lawyers for an Aer Lingus pilot stripped of command duties three years ago say he has been deprived of over €250,000 in earnings by an allegedly “sham” disciplinary process pursued against him.

The airline has argued the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) should not make an order reinstating the pilot, Declan McCabe, as a captain, as final submissions were heard in a two-year legal battle on Friday.

An adjudication officer is now considering his decision on complaints of whistleblower penalisation by McCabe against Aer Lingus Ltd.

McCabe was demoted from captain to first officer for what the airline deemed breaches of his air safety reporting obligations while flying in command of an Airbus A321xlr which failed to link up with a radio navigation beacon coming into Dublin Airport before making a turn to re-establish contact.

The conclusion in a disciplinary investigation was that McCabe’s aircraft, with 156 passengers on crew aboard, was “flying in the wrong direction ... until air traffic control intervened” on the day, according to Captain Eamon Kierans, the manager who conducted the process.

McCabe said what happened was “a non-event from a flying point of view” and that relevant Aer Lingus manual left it up to his judgment to decide whether to report it. The company disagreed.

In a closing argument on Friday, McCabe’s barrister, David Byrnes, led by Setanta Solicitors, said Captain Colm Wynne and Aer Lingus’s ex-chief pilot Davina Pratt, “tried to take away the newly-minted captaincy my client had achieved ... for calling in fatigued” in 2011.

“This was because of the roster changes at the time, and there was tension between the union and the airline. Captain Wynne put the commercial interest of the company first, and set a deadly precedent,” he submitted.

“The message is clear: do not call into Aer Lingus fatigued,” counsel said.

It was “highly questionable” that Wynne had been involved from the start of the investigations into the events surrounding the 8th June, 2023 flight, despite later saying he had stepped away, Byrnes submitted

His client was supposed to be shielded by specific legal protections from disciplinary action for aircrew unless there was “firm, reliable evidence” their actions reached “the extremely high level of wilful culpability”.

Byrnes said the subsequent processes leading to his client’s demotion were a “sham disciplinary” and that it was “truly extraordinary” that Aer Lingus had asked adjudicator John Harraghy to “ignore the unfairness”.

Tom Mallon, appearing instructed by Arthur Cox LLP for the respondent, Mr Byrnes’s submissions on the standard of the investigation, disciplinary and appeal processes were not relevant to the case.

“The plane was in the wrong place [and] corrective action had to be taken, whatever was the cause of it,” he said.

“That can’t be glossed over, that disciplinary investigation. It was about conduct, not competence,” he added.

Byrnes said Aer Lingus “wants to get a million miles away from this with the jets turned up full blast [because] they know well that these processes are simply untenable”.

In submissions on redress, Byrnes said his client was entitled to a direction reinstating him to command with the rank of captain.

In all, he said, his client’s had been deprived of over a quarter of a million euro in pay since his demotion.

Byrnes said the jurisdiction went beyond financial loss and argued there was precedent for an award of “proportionate and dissuasive” compensation in the case – referencing the maximum jurisdiction of five years’ salary.

Mallon said the Supreme Court had made clear reinstatement was only to be awarded in “very rare” and “exceptional” circumstances.

Adjudicator John Harraghy closed the hearing said he would write to the parties with his decision next year.