Aer Lingus will meet with union leaders on Thursday in a bid to avert strike action during the St. Patrick's weekend celebrations.

SIPTU has warned Aer Lingus that a strike at the airline is now 'highly probable'.

Earlier, the Transport Minister Leo Varadkar called on SIPTU members at Aer Lingus and the DAA not to go ahead with the action.

"There is a solution that can be found to this problem, but as the Tanaiste said it's going to require negotiations and a bit of give and take from both sides" he said.

"It's already been to the Labour Court, but there are discussions underway now as to whether we can find some sort of process to allow negotiations to restart".

"I think everyone will accept the strike action isn't going to solve this problem - only negotiation will" he added.

This long-running dispute is over a deficit in the Aer Lingus and Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) pension scheme of €780 million.

Earlier this month, workers at the airline and Dublin, Cork and Shannon Airports voted overwhelmingly to take industrial action.

It was feared the strike would coincide with St. Patrick's weekend when nearly 250,000 people arrive at our airports and many thousands of Irish people head away for a long weekend.

Announcing preliminary results for 2013 this morning the CEO of Aer Lingus said a strike wont solve anything.

Christoph Mueller says they have put forward a viable solution based on the Labour Court recommendation last year, and that the company cant wait any longer to bring in a €30 million cost saving plan.

Dermot O'Loughlin of SIPTU said only meaningful negotiations will avert the strike.