Friday 11th December 2020
No agreement in the wage dispute
Lufthansa boss threatens pilots with dismissal
Lufthansa is concerned about the group of employees with the highest salaries, and an agreement in the collective bargaining dispute with the pilots is not in sight. The hanging game could cost hundreds of the job. Thanks to the strict austerity course, the airline wants to start making profits again from 2022.
Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr is already threatening mass layoffs of pilots in the coming spring due to the lack of a collective agreement. "In the absence of an agreement, it will probably be the first time in the history of our company in the second quarter of 2021 that 500 captains and 500 first officers will have to leave us," he told "Wirtschaftswoche". That would be around a fifth of the Lufthansa cockpit staff.
Unlike the flight attendants, the pilots would not have accepted sufficient concessions in terms of salaries and reductions in working hours. "It is all about the group of employees with the highest collective wages," said Spohr. "Innovative part-time models for the next few years should be possible in order to compensate for the undoubtedly existing surplus of staff with as few layoffs as possible."
In terms of bookings, things are looking good for the coming year thanks to the imminent availability of corona vaccines. "Since there was a definite prospect of an effective vaccine, our bookings for next summer have tripled," said Spohr. "I assume that in the coming year we will be able to achieve an average of half the level of 2019 again, for the summer and autumn we calculate with up to 70 percent."
Lufthansa practices strict cost management
The outflow of liquid funds is to be stopped in the coming year. Lufthansa wants to be profitable again from 2022. That is why Spohr continues to assume that the federal government will reduce its participation from 2023. Lufthansa currently has more liquidity than expected. "Of the stabilization funds totaling nine billion euros, we have only called three billion euros so far," said Spohr. Thanks to strict cost management, Lufthansa actually only spent a small part of it.
Spohr asked Frankfurt Airport to accommodate Lufthansa with the fees. "We have made agreements with our hub airports in Munich, Zurich, Vienna and Brussels to start up business together. In Frankfurt not even the negotiations on fees for parked aircraft resulted in a compromise customary in the market," said the manager. That is why Lufthansa is now relocating other aircraft that are not required, such as the superjumbo Airbus A380, to airports in Spain and southern France.
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