The union and company confirmed on Saturday that no result had been achieved in several confidential talks. “We want to remain in discussion mode and have therefore offered the Cockpit Association further appointments in order (…) to develop sustainable solutions,” said a company spokesman on request.
The union also did not rule out further talks. The further procedure must be discussed in the next few days, said a spokesman. Regarding a report by the specialist portal “aero.de”, according to which a strike at the highly profitable freight subsidiary Lufthansa Cargo is “in the room”, the VC spokesman said: “There is definitely no decision to strike.” At Lufthansa Cargo, the pilots had shown a particularly high level of willingness in a ballot to go to industrial action for their demands.
In principle, the VC is capable of going on strike in both Lufthansa Passenger Airlines and Cargo after a successful ballot. Before the soundings, there had already been six official rounds of negotiations without a result.
The Lufthansa leadership had recently signaled a willingness to compromise and accepted the VC partial demand for 5.5 percent more money for the rest of 2022. On the other hand, there have been no public statements on further demands for automatic inflation compensation from 2023 or on changes in the tariff structure.
The pilots had also been given the prospect of a renewed fleet commitment. As a result, a certain number of aircraft from the Group fleet would again be reserved solely for the pilots of the core company Lufthansa. According to “aero.de”, the VC is said to have requested in the soundings that the establishment of the planned “Lufthansa Cityline 2” flight operation be put on hold for the time being. The group wants to use this airline to organize flights that have previously been handled by the Lufthansa core company itself.
Source: Nachrichten
