Downsizing in the cabin: Lufthansa lures older people with severance payments

In order to prepare for the future, Lufthansa is planning a large-scale downsizing. The airline wants to convince older cabin crew to say goodbye with a severance payment. The responsible union speaks of a "regrettably narrow package".

Lufthansa wants to make the voluntary departure from the airline palatable for older flight attendants with a severance payment. The offer runs from the beginning of September to the end of October and is aimed at cabin employees aged at least 55 years, said a company spokesman, confirming a report by "Spiegel". The employees should therefore receive a kind of transitional allowance every month until the earliest possible entry into regular retirement at the age of 63.

The magazine reports that employees could switch to the company pension scheme early and would receive around half of their previous earnings. Lufthansa wants to offer younger flight attendants a one-off payment if they leave the company voluntarily. According to the spokesman, this is still being negotiated.

Lufthansa 8.50

"This is a regrettably narrow package," criticized the flight attendant union UFO. It will not be enough to reduce the excess staff in the cabin without redundancies.

Due to the lower demand, Lufthansa expects that there will be 22,000 too many full-time positions in the company in the near future. Around half of these jobs are to be cut in Germany. According to earlier information, this applies to 2,600 employees in the cabin.

Arbitration occurs on the spot

At the same time, collective bargaining between the airline and the union is stalling. The two arbitrators Frank-Jürgen Weise and Matthias Platzeck were still in discussion, but had not yet agreed on a recommendation, it said. The Ufo named Platzeck recently said that he had largely agreed on an arbitrator's verdict with Weise on August 19. This was then criticized by Lufthansa. If there is no agreement, the conflict over paid leave of absence for members of the UFO tariff commission could end up in court again.

The relationship between Lufthansa and UFO has been considered broken for a long time. At the end of January, both sides agreed to resolve the conflict in a multi-stage process through a "major arbitration". In the course of the Corona crisis, they also sealed a crisis collective agreement until the end of 2023. This has not yet been achieved with the ground staff, and Lufthansa has only achieved an interim solution with the pilots. Due to the crisis deal with UFO, only the dispute over the exemptions remained in the mediation.

.