According to dpa information from the DPA news agency, both sides agreed on Tuesday in Frankfurt. Details were not initially known. The agreement was also confirmed by the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) pilots’ union.
“In all likelihood, the strike will be called off,” a VC spokesman told the AFP news agency on Tuesday afternoon.
During the night, VC had announced a second wave of strikes starting on Wednesday, which could only be prevented by a “serious offer” from Lufthansa. The Lufthansa core company should therefore go on strike on Wednesday and Thursday, and one day longer at the freight subsidiary Lufthansa Cargo.
The negotiations began at 10 a.m. and were under great time pressure because Lufthansa would have had to decide on flight cancellations in the event of a strike. The company said that this was necessary both for aircraft and crew scheduling and for at least a minimal lead time for passengers. Lufthansa HR Director Michael Niggemann had declared the threat and the escalation to be false, but nevertheless made a new offer.
Lufthansa had already canceled the entire operation of the core company for last Friday after the VC had called on its members for the first wave of strikes. Around 800 flights with 130,000 passengers were canceled.
The VC changed its earlier call for automated inflation compensation and now called for an 8.2 percent annual tariff increase from 2023 – in addition to a 5.5 percent increase this year. Lufthansa has offered flat-rate increases in the basic salary of EUR 500 as of September 1, 2022 and EUR 400 as of April 1, 2023. Depending on the previous salary, this results in increases of between 5 and 18 percent.
CEO Carsten Spohr said the previous evening that in times of high inflation, significant salary increases are appropriate, especially in the lower groups, and that some starting salaries are no longer sustainable. “We have not left our employees alone in the pandemic, and we will not leave them alone in inflation either.”
According to Lufthansa, the combined claims of VC before the change amounted to around 900 million euros in additional costs in two years. The personnel costs in the cockpit would increase by 40 percent. This is beyond reasonable, even without considering the financial consequences of the Corona crisis.
Source: Nachrichten
