Frankfurt Lufthansa pilots have decided on a second wave of strikes at the airline. The union Cockpit announced on Tuesday night in Frankfurt that the company could avert the two-day strike planned for Wednesday with an offer that should be “taken seriously”.
In a first reaction, a Lufthansa spokesman said: “We very much regret that the union is continuing on the path of escalation.” It is clear that a solution can only be found at the negotiating table, according to those close to the company.
The pilots who are ready to go on strike want to be offered an improved tariff. Negotiations are scheduled to begin in the morning. A decision must be made by 12 p.m. at the latest as to whether flights will be canceled for the threatened strike days from Wednesday. According to the company, this is necessary both for aircraft and crew scheduling and for at least a minimal lead time for the passengers concerned.
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The Lufthansa management fears that, like a few years ago, a long conflict with ever new waves of strikes is looming. You definitely want to prevent that. Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr said on Monday evening at an event at the group’s headquarters at Frankfurt Airport that they are working on improving the relationship of trust with the collective bargaining partners: “The word partnership must be lived and felt again.”
Lufthansa pilots went on strike just last week.
(Photo: dpa)
However, it remains to be seen whether a rapprochement can be achieved today in order to prevent industrial action. There are tons of topics. Not only two collective agreements are open. The dispute is also overshadowed by the pilots’ concern that the Lufthansa core brand will be shrunk at the expense of other group airlines that have lower personnel costs. Lufthansa management is considering moving feeder flights at the two hubs in Frankfurt and Munich from Lufthansa to a new airline brand, Cityline 2.0.
On the other hand, Spohr does not want to know anything about a shrinking of the core airline. “In contrast to what is often shown, it has grown more in recent years than the group as a whole,” he said. The brand strength that Lufthansa has developed is related to the special role of the employees there: “That’s why I believe that better cooperation can also be achieved with this professional group.”
CEO Spohr believes in a solution to the conflict
It is questionable whether such statements help to defuse the emotionally charged conflict with the cockpit staff. It is true that some pilots privately admit that they demand very high wage supplements. The Lufthansa management recently calculated that the union’s demands would increase personnel costs in the cockpit by a good 40 percent over a period of 18 months, and described this as unbearable.
On the other hand, there are also hardliners in the VC who think it is time to seek a confrontation with the Lufthansa leadership. “We would have wished for it differently,” explained VC collective bargaining board member Marcel Gröls. “Unfortunately, the forces of inertia at Lufthansa are considerable.”
Should both sides not be able to approach each other sufficiently, a new strike is inevitable. The degree of organization of the pilots is very high, most of them have followed a call from the VC for a labor dispute. In that case, the departures of Lufthansa passenger planes from Germany should be on strike on Wednesday and Thursday. At the freight subsidiary Lufthansa Cargo, the strike is only planned for Wednesday.
>> Read here: Up to 100,000 euros in salary difference – that’s how much pilots earn at Lufthansa and Eurowings
During the first wave of strikes last Friday, Lufthansa canceled the entire program of its core airline. More than 800 flights with 130,000 affected passengers were canceled and the company said it suffered economic damage of 32 million euros. The subsidiaries Eurowings, Lufthansa Cityline and Eurowings Discover were not affected by the industrial action and would also be left out of the new wave.
The Lufthansa management is aware that there is a backlog in salaries. “In times of such high inflation, significant wage increases are also appropriate from the Management Board’s point of view, especially in the lower income groups,” said Spohr.
Lufthansa has achieved the cost reductions in recent years primarily by maintaining the incomes of long-standing employees, but lowering the starting salaries. “There are starting salaries that are not sustainable in this form with this inflation,” Spohr admitted.
Lufthansa plans to hire thousands of new employees over the next year and a half
In addition, the top Lufthansa seat lured with greater opportunities for advancement. “There have been no promotions in the last two and a half years. Now we’re going to start the whole thing up again.” The company also wants to hire a lot. “We need 20,000 new employees in the next 18 months. That is a tour de force.”
The looming recession in Germany should not change the plans. Spohr also believes that Germany will be hit harder by a recession than other countries. But business in the USA, for example, is going very well. “We sell there at prices and capacity utilization that we do not know in this form. That will continue in 2023.” China will also open up at least a little, Japan has already announced an opening.
The CEO fears that the salary costs for the airline will rise too much.
(Photo: dpa)
In the coming year, according to Spohr, Lufthansa wants to increase capacity from currently around 80 percent of the pre-crisis level to up to 90 percent. That would be 50 more aircraft than in the summer of this year. The core brand would benefit greatly from the investments in the fleet and its equipment, Spohr promised the pilots.
However, the Lufthansa boss makes no secret of the fact that he sees the group as being too dependent on the home market of Germany. “We want to remain among the top ten airlines worldwide, so we want to continue to internationalize.”
Lufthansa welcomes the elimination of the mask requirement on planes
Although one is glad that now only a third of the turnover comes from Germany. But Lufthansa is 80 percent dependent on regulation in Germany, said Spohr, referring to the government’s previous plan to make FFP2 masks compulsory on planes. According to information from the corporate environment, the announcement alone has led to business travelers increasingly relocating long-haul flights to Zurich, where there is no mask requirement.
Spohr is pleased that the federal government moved away from its mask plans on Monday. “How happy are our employees who no longer have to play mask police. How happy almost 300,000 passengers are every day.”
More: “More state influence, less privatization” – Lufthansa laments defeat in the bidding war for ITA.