Management at the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) has written to staff this week to announce that all staff engaged in its ‘New Ways of Working’ programme will see their pay restored to 100% time and pay from 28^th March.

Most staff at Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), the State company responsible for managing Cork and Dublin airports, are currently on 80% of normal pay.

In a letter to staff DAA chief executive Dalton Philips acknowledged “the huge sacrifices” made by staff to support the DAA, and confirmed that the change will apply from 28^th March until 11^th September. The pay measures will be seen in pay packets from 21^st April, confirming the company’s intentions in an announcement made last December. 

Fórsa official Johnny Fox explained that the decision is based upon the continued successful implementation of the changes agreed under ‘New Ways of Working’ (known internally as NWOW), which have helped the DAA achieve the necessary savings: “This is a very rare piece of good news in the aviation sector, following what has probably been the darkest year in the history of the industry here.

“It signals a small piece of hope for the months ahead as the vaccine is rolled out. Every Fórsa member embraced the ‘NWOW’ approach, demonstrating a genuine collective effort to respond to the devastation that Covid delivered to the industry.

“The decision to resume full pay acknowledges those efforts and shows the mutual commitment that has made this measure possible. It has been an exceptionally challenging 12 months. Let’s hope it’s the first of the green shoots we’ve all longed for,” he said.

Johnny said Fórsa’s approach throughout 2020 was to maximise the potential to retain jobs and protect pay, and to prepare the ground for an eventual recovery in passenger numbers, with any measures agreed designed to facilitate pay and jobs recovery in line with the recovery of the industry.

The DAA’s overall workforce has reduced by a third since the pandemic struck. During that time an agreed approach with the unions achieved very significant payroll and non-payroll cost savings. The DAA said it reduced its overall costs by 50% during the period from April to December last 2020.

The DAA letter and an accompanying explanatory booklet advises staff to book and take leave, using their annual leave and time off in lieu (TIL) balances by 11^th September, in order to “support and help prepare the business for the recovery when it does come.”

Read the letter to staff HERE. 

Read the accompanying Q&A booklet HERE. 

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