While since the beginning of the summer strikes have multiplied in transport around the world, the threat of soon seeing Lufthansa planes grounded is also growing. It would be a blow for the German company which has already had to cancel thousands of flights this summer this week.
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The pilots of the German airline indeed voted almost unanimously (97.6%) on Sunday the principle of a strike to assert their demands, in particular a sharp rise in wages. This vote does not necessarily mean that a strike will take place, but constitutes a warning for the management, said Marcel Gröls, member of the management of the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) pilots’ union.
Lufthansa respects the results of the vote and hopes that a constructive solution will be found around the negotiating table, a company spokesman said. The VC union is calling for a 5.5% wage increase this year for pilots and then automatic inflation compensation thereafter. It also calls for the establishment of a single salary scale for all staff of Lufthansa group companies, including the eponymous company but also its low-cost division Eurowings. In order to secure the pilots’ jobs, the union is also asking for a guarantee on the volume of the Lufthansa fleet.
At the same time, the pilots of the Swiss company, which also belongs to the Lufthansa group since 2005, rejected by an 80% majority a proposal for a new contract, their union Aeropers announced on Sunday.
“If management continues to ignore the signs of the times and fail to immediately offer adequate solutions, the drivers will have to make their dissatisfaction even clearer,” the union added without further details.
Lufthansa ground staff are also demanding wage increases of 9.5%. On July 27 they participated in a 24-hour work stoppage that caused major traffic disruptions in Germany. But in both cases, management refuses to accede to wage demands.
As a preventive measure, Lufthansa had canceled the « almost all » of his flights today in Germany. More than 130,000 passengers on nearly a thousand flights departing from and arriving at the two main hubs in Frankfurt and Munich were affected.