It now seems that Aer Lingus has announced that it could be forced to make some more job cuts, as well as suspend some more routes. This announcement came just following the news that talks between management and crew had finally broken down.

Back in October, the new chief executive of Aer Lingus, Christoph Mueller, outlined some new plans for cuts that did include cutting 676 jobs of the 4,000 plus workforce. The airline was hoping that it would be able to reach an agreement with the cabin crew and pilots on the new plan, but talks became struck over pilot demands for a relatively high compensation package when compared to other rival airlines.

Christoph Mueller said that Aer Lingus and its employees have not been able to reach an agreement for the transformation plan. The Board and Management will now move to reduce capacity and eliminate routes. He said that this will likely result in fewer aircrafts, thus the additional redundancies that were not included in the transformation plan.

He went on to note that it was very likely that the redundancies will commence immediately and will be compulsory. The board will meet again on Friday to try and reach an agreement of some kind. Aer Lingus made €80 million in losses in the first half of the year on revenues of €555 million. This is 10 percent less than what was made during the same time in 2008. The capacity reductions have increased load factors, and the pace of decline in revenues is starting to slow. However, it will be some time before recovery is reached.