Aer Lingus resumes flights

Aer Lingus dispute threatened survival of Ireland's national carrier

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Aer Lingus took to the skies again on Tuesday after its pilots accepted a settlement to a dispute that grounded the state-run carrier for almost a week.

Flights to Europe and the UK resumed at around 1200 GMT, with transatlantic service expected to be restored on Wednedsay.

The pilots late on Monday voted 91-percent in favour of an agreement, put forward by Ireland's Labour Court, to end the dispute over working conditions which began on Thursday.

The work stoppage stranded tens of thousands of passengers and costs the airlines 2 million euros ($1.9 million) a day.

The dispute began with a 24-hour hour strike by pilots to protest the suspension of colleagues who had refused to work a new schedule that shortened their rest period to 10 hours. Aer Lingus responded by grounded flights and taking pilots off the payroll.

"Our members will be arriving for work on Tuesday morning, as they have been every day since Friday when the airline locked them out," a spokesman for the pilots' union IMPACT told Reuters.

The agreement calls for rest times to reduced from 13 to 12 hours, while individual pilots could be asked to accept 10-hour breaks up to six times.

The flight disruptions threatened the survival of the Aer Lingus, which last year posted a loss of 140 million euros. In October, the airline announced a survival plan, which included cutting a third of its 6,000-member workforce.

Aer Lingus said the agreement with its pilots would "meet in full the objectives of the survival plan."

Along with other major airlines, the national carrier has been hard hit by a downturn in the industry following the September 11 attacks in the U.S. and as slowdown in the global economy.

Ireland's tourism board, Bord Failte, had warned the dispute could further hurt an industry already reeling from the effects of the foot-and-mouth disease.