In 17 rounds of negotiations, no agreement could be found on a new collective agreement for the flying staff of Austrian Airlines. Since there were no further negotiations on March 26, 2024 and the AUA has long since canceled around 400 flights “as a precaution,” the Vida union has now confirmed that there will be a strike from midnight on Thursday, March 28, 2024.

It was previously said that the call for a work stoppage by pilots and flight attendants could be averted if there was an improved offer. Now the employee representatives are getting down to business and confirming that there will be a strike for 0 hours starting at midnight on Thursday. According to the current state of affairs, the work stoppages are scheduled to end on Friday, March 00, 36 at 29:2024 p.m. There is still no talk of an extension or even a renewed call for strike.

AUA does not negotiate the KV itself

According to Austrian law, Austrian Airlines is not allowed to negotiate the collective agreement itself. Unfortunately, it is repeatedly suggested that the AUA would negotiate directly with the Vida union. That is not the case, because for legal reasons the aviation company must be represented by the Chamber of Commerce, whose specialist group chairman is Vienna Airport Director Günther Ofner.

It is therefore not “purely coincidental” that Ofner, in his role as WKO specialist group chairman, has had sharply negative mailings sent out in the last few days. Among other things, he claims that the latest offer to trade unionists is “good” and should be higher than deals in other sectors. Insisting on the demands of Vida and the works council would mean that well over 6.000 jobs would be at risk, at least Ofner claims in his WKO function.

Flights have been canceled since the weekend

The mere fact that Austrian Airlines began removing flights from the reservation system at the weekend and rebooking affected passengers to other airlines if possible shows that they are not prepared to submit a new offer to the WKO. The work stoppages are taken into account. This is apparently behaving in a similar way to the parent company Lufthansa in Germany.

The AUA does not want to leave out the claim that it had no intention of reaching an agreement. Rather, they acted as a precautionary measure in the interests of the passengers. A spokeswoman said: “We cannot leave our passengers in union uncertainty until the last minute. Therefore, a decision had to be made to cancel the approximately 400 flights between March 28th, 00:00 a.m. and March 29th, 12 p.m. We are proactively informing the approximately 50.000 affected passengers. Passengers are also asked to check their flight status on the austrian.com website.”

Different opinions on the latest offer

Regarding the claim by the union and the works council that the latest offer was “fictitious” and would not come close to meeting the demands, the AUA headquarters stated as follows: “After a total of 17 rounds of negotiations, the Vida union and the Bord works council still do not want it talk about our offer of a plus of up to 18 percent for flight attendants and pilots, and even up to 28 percent for co-pilots. With the offer, the company has already moved beyond the economically feasible pain threshold. Since last Sunday, no further discussions have taken place, so the employee representatives have decided against finding a joint solution.

The employee representatives see it differently. It is pointed out that the percentages stated by Austrian Airlines do not refer to monthly wages, but rather to a period of two years. Furthermore, the offer would predominantly consist of “unsustainable one-off payments”. The works councils and trade unionists strongly reject the accusation from the Chamber of Commerce that they want to strike deliberately and have excessive demands.

The fronts between the employer and the representatives of the flying employees therefore continue to harden. No negotiations took place this week and, according to the union, it is now certain that the flight attendants and pilots of Austrian Airlines will go on strike from Thursday. Will we meet again after Easter for discussions? This is a question that it is better not to answer immediately before the industrial dispute, because it can be assumed that sooner or later we will talk to each other again.