After about five months of negotiations and a strike, the UFO flight attendant union and Lufthansa were able to agree on higher salaries for cabin crew. Around 19.000 employees are affected.

The main components of the collective agreement result are: an increase in all salary levels by 16,5% - with an interest effect of 17,4% - in three steps, payment of an inflation compensation bonus of 3.000 euros (part-time pro rata), increases in allowances for senior flight attendants and an increase in the surcharge for holiday pay. Now it is the turn of the members of the UFO union, because they have to decide whether to accept or reject the agreement, which is supposed to run for 36 months.

“We fought hard to achieve this comprehensive compensation package. Unfortunately, despite all de-escalative efforts, a labor dispute could not be prevented in order to convince Lufthansa of the seriousness of our demands. But we can now be very satisfied with the result. A longer term has given us scope for more attractive conditions and at the same time offers not only our colleagues reliable planning for the next two and a half years, but also Lufthansa,” says Harry Jaeger, head of tariff policy and negotiator at UFO. “We will now quickly let our members decide whether they are as satisfied with this package as we are, because that is ultimately what matters. Then we have to quickly look ahead, because the next collective bargaining negotiations are already waiting for us. In view of the continued disastrous planning and the lack of staff, which may result in another summer of chaos, a lot of things need to be put to the test quickly. In addition, the general collective agreement is due to be renegotiated at the end of this year.”

Negotiations at the subsidiaries Lufthansa Cityline and Discover Airlines have not yet been completed. There have already been strikes at both companies. According to Ufo, the current state of affairs is as follows: “The colleagues from the two Lufthansa subsidiaries have fought to make their legitimate demands heard. Even if we cannot yet announce a collective agreement result, we are confident that we will soon find good solutions here too. At Lufthansa CityLine, we have now returned to the collective bargaining table in order to achieve a similar comprehensive package for our colleagues as for the Lufthansa cabin,” explains Sara Grubisic, collective bargaining officer at UFO. “We have come a long way at Discover. Good solutions have already been found for issues such as vacation regulations, deployment planning, significant table increases and additional pay components. Agreements still need to be reached on social partnership between the company and the union. We are very confident that we will be able to conclude a tariff agreement with Discover on these topics shortly. We call on the company management, which has the final say, to give its approval to these good solutions.”