A few days before the end of the peace obligation, the collective bargaining between Lufthansa and its 5,200 regular pilots continues.
Talks are still ongoing, but nothing can be said about the details, both sides said on Tuesday when asked.
The peace obligation of the previous agreement ends on Friday, so that strikes are theoretically possible during the peak travel season from July. According to a spokesman, the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union has not yet decided how to proceed, especially since the talks have not yet been completed.
In the event of failure, warning strikes are conceivable, as is the initiation of a strike ballot on indefinite strikes. Most recently, the Lufthansa pilots paralyzed flight operations with a warning strike on September 2, 2022. More than 800 flights with around 130,000 affected passengers were canceled.
The salaries and working conditions of around 5,200 pilots of the core company Lufthansa and the freight subsidiary Lufthansa Cargo are being negotiated. In September, both sides agreed on an interim solution to give them more time to resolve fundamental issues, but this never happened. The interim solution contained two flat-rate salary increases of EUR 490 per month, which according to Lufthansa meant increases of between 5.5 and 20 percent.
The VC is now demanding 8.5 percent more money for a term of one year. In addition, she wants to change numerous regulations on length of service and standby and standardize the salary structure. The union rejected the company’s latest offer as insufficient. It extends the required 8.5 percent to 30 months and does not go into numerous detailed requirements.
In the background, the fundamental dispute over the size of the core company continues to smolder. Months ago, CEO Carsten Spohr indicated his willingness to revive a fleet commitment of 325 aircraft that had been canceled in the meantime. These could then only be flown by pilots who are employed under the VC tariff.
For years, VC has opposed Lufthansa’s efforts to shift transport services and thus jobs to cheaper flight operations. Lufthansa has founded the new company City Airlines in Munich, which could take over short and medium-sized feeder flights to the Munich hub from 2024.
In XETRA trading, the Lufthansa share was temporarily up 0.24 percent to EUR 9.20.
/ceb/DP/jha
FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX)
Selected leverage products on Lufthansa AG
With knock-outs, speculative investors can participate disproportionately in price movements. Simply select the desired lever and we will show you suitable open-end products on Lufthansa AG
Leverage must be between 2 and 20