After negotiations – strike averted: Swiss and pilots agree – news

  • The Swiss pilots will not carry out their threatened strike.
  • After more than 12 months of negotiations, Aeropers and Swiss have been able to agree on the basic parameters of a new GAV, as the pilots’ association reports.
  • The Swiss pilots had threatened to go on strike next weekend.
  • They have been fighting for better working conditions for months.

Aeropers will first inform the members, then the media, as the pilots’ association announced at the request of SRF. The key figures of the new GAV are to be communicated in the afternoon.

After intensive discussions, an agreement was reached between the parties. This is announced by the Aeropers pilots’ association in a communiqué. “We have always emphasized that we want to reach a solution at the negotiating table. We kept our word », says Clemens Kopetz, Aeropers President.

“I’m glad that Aeropers and we were able to agree on the cornerstones of a new collective labor agreement for cockpit staff after a difficult negotiation process that lasted almost two years,” Swiss CEO Dieter Vranckx said in a statement. “This is an important success for everyone involved, which brings us as a company and our customers back to the usual calm.”

The negotiations lasted from Saturday to Monday morning, according to Vranckx: “The negotiations were difficult and tough.”

Staff since April without a valid CLA

The dispute between Swiss and its pilots is about the collective labor agreement (GAV), which Swiss terminated with the pilots in February 2021 at the end of March 2022. So far, however, the pilots have been dissatisfied with the new conditions imposed by Swiss.

Specifically, the pilots had demanded better working conditions; For example, more predictability in order to be able to reconcile work and private life. Other points of contention were wages and an adjustment to inflation. Ultimately, the Swiss leadership had to and was able to accommodate the unions. Because a strike would have been expensive.

Swiss is doing better economically

In addition, Swiss has long been on the right track economically, in contrast to many other airlines. So Swiss had a certain amount of financial leeway.

And the prospects have continued to improve, as Vranckx confirmed on Monday at Zurich Airport: “Of course we are very proud that we closed the first half of the year profitably. In terms of profitability, we are well below the level of 2019. We all know our reality. It remains difficult. But the summer was good.”

The agreement with Aeropers should now last for the next four years. There have also been disputes over workload and wages among Swiss ground staff and the ground handling company Swissport in recent months. In both cases, the companies finally gave in and gave the employees significantly better conditions.

How important is this agreement?


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SRF business editor Matthias Heim assesses the agreement between Swiss and the pilots: “A strike by the pilots would not only have become more expensive financially. Rather, he would have also battered the image of Swiss. An image that is already a bit tarnished after the canceled flights this summer and in autumn due to too few staff. »

In addition, this case also shows how important it is to always have good and sufficient staff available, says Heim: “And you have to keep that in a good mood. This agreement is therefore also an internal sign of appreciation, even if it is perhaps a banal insight. But no plane takes off without staff.”

And the trade unions also had to show insight. “The unions had to realize that a strike would have been legitimate from their point of view. But the travelers would only have met with limited understanding. And so both sides got together again and reached an agreement – ​​in line with Swiss customs.”

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