A date has not yet been set. But after another failed negotiation, there could now be a pilot strike at Lufthansa at any time. The pilots are demanding that the company take further steps towards them, including automatic inflation compensation.
Another attempt at Lufthansa to prevent the threatened pilot strikes has failed. The collective bargaining committee of the Cockpit Association rejected an improved offer from the company, as a spokesman reported. While it is a step in the right direction, it is still far from sufficient. The union threatened that strikes were now possible at any time after the corresponding decision by the board of directors. Concrete dates, strike locations or companies were not mentioned. The Lufthansa core company in Frankfurt and Munich as well as the freight subsidiary Lufthansa Cargo come into question.
The Cockpit Association stated: “The legal and organizational preparations for strike measures have been started. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Cockpit Association can still be reached.”
The official reason for the possible labor dispute is the deadlock after six rounds of negotiations on a new wage agreement. A subsequent round of exploratory talks behind closed doors had also not produced any results by the end of last week. The Cockpit Association says it is demanding, among other things, salary increases of 5.5 percent in the current year and automatic inflation compensation from the coming year. She had terminated the previous collective agreement on June 30th.
In addition, a conflict smolders about the future corporate strategy. In the past, the Cockpit Association had had the exact number of 325 aircraft guaranteed, which could only be flown by the approximately 5,000 captains and first officers who were subject to the group collective agreement, which is also the issue now. Under the impression of the Corona crisis, Lufthansa had terminated the corresponding supplementary agreement and started to set up new flight operations with lower tariff conditions under the crane logo. The new airline, known internally as “Cityline 2”, is to take over numerous flights from the previous core company in European traffic.
