Lufthansa and the pilots' union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) were able to agree on further cost-cutting measures to cope with the corona crisis. These should apply to the pilots of Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo, Lufthansa Aviation Training and parts of the Germanwings pilots, as they say.
Cost reduction by the end of the year
The agreement includes measures to reduce costs, which are to apply until the end of 2020. From September onwards, among other things, the increase in short-time working allowance and employer contributions to fund retirement benefits will be reduced. Tariff increases agreed for 2020 will be postponed to January 2021.
Compulsory layoffs in the second quarter of 2021 at the earliest
In return, the cockpit personnel will receive protection against dismissal until March 31, 2021. The significant overcapacity of the pilots will, however, last considerably longer than until March 2021. The number of redundancies for operational reasons can therefore only be limited by concluding a long-term crisis agreement. In a long-term crisis package, the costs of excess staff could be compensated for by reducing working hours and wages for the period of the crisis, for example.
At the same time, Lufthansa announced that it would refrain from hiring new pilots from outside the Group in all German flight operations as long as there were surplus staff. This also applies to tourist flight operations.
"We clearly reject Lufthansa's threat to issue redundancies. In our opinion, a social partnership must show how resilient it is, especially in bad times. The pilots are prepared to make a tangible contribution to keeping all cockpit personnel on board. Maintaining jobs remains our top priority. The VC stands behind Lufthansa in these difficult times. Conversely, we expect the Group Executive Board to stand behind all employees in the same way," said Markus Wahl, President of the VC.
The package of measures has already been accepted by the Executive Board of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, the Air Transport Employers' Association and the VC committees and is effective immediately.