air traffic
Lufthansa: collective agreements terminated – pilots about to be dismissed?
Lufthansa has surplus cockpit staff – and now has to find solutions. Photo: Boris Roessler / dpa
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21 months after the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, personnel issues in the cockpits of the shrinking Lufthansa are still unresolved. In the negotiations, increasingly tough conditions are used.
At the corona-stricken Lufthansa, the conflict over excess cockpit personnel is worsening.
The group has terminated an agreement with Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), with which a fleet of at least 325 aircraft was guaranteed at the Lufthansa core company. The associated employment commitments for around 5,000 pilots are also no longer applicable. Conversely, the union announced on Friday that it for its part had terminated the collective wage agreement at the core company effective June 30, 2022.
This means that pilot strikes will be possible again from the middle of the year. The parties have been negotiating for months on how to deal with the surplus of staff from the Corona crisis. The group wants to permanently reduce its fleet from 760 to 650 aircraft, and the core brand should also shrink. “We have now canceled the fleet commitment because we cannot maintain it. Foreseeable there will be less demand, ”said a company spokesman on Friday. First the platform “Aerotelegraph” reported on the canceled agreement.
Short-time work until the end of March
Short-time working regulations apply to the pilots until the end of March. For the time after that, Lufthansa has announced layoffs in the event that other models cannot be found, for example part-time. According to Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr, up to 1,000 full-time positions must be saved. “Lufthansa is proceeding very aggressively in the negotiations and wants to implement permanent salary cuts,” said VC tariff board member Marcel Gröls on Friday.
Things could get tight for the around 390 pilots of the wound up subsidiary Germanwings. A reconciliation of interests has failed there, and there is no money for severance payments after the resolution of the arbitration board, as Lufthansa confirmed on Friday. First, «Der Spiegel» reported on it. The group continues to strive to offer its colleagues perspectives in the cockpits of other companies, said the group spokesman. Around 150 Germanwings captains could also return to their Lufthansa positions if an agreement with the VC is achieved there.