AUA works meeting: Which 92 flights will be canceled today

After the 36-hour strike last week, 92 flights are canceled today (Thursday) due to a works meeting, affecting 8,000 passengers. The vida union is not ruling out further strikes – negotiations are scheduled to continue next week.

• Also read: AUA is canceling 92 flights on Thursday

The KV dispute has been dragging on for weeks now, and 17 rounds of negotiations have failed to produce an agreement. Hundreds of flights could not take place and, according to AUA, tens of thousands of passengers did not reach their destination as planned.

No long-haul flights are cancelled

According to AUA information, all long-haul flights should be carried out today. It will also be possible to carry out 80 flights during the company meeting, said AUA spokeswoman Sophie Matkovits in the Ö1 “Morgenjournal”. She estimated the financial damage caused by the previous works meetings and the strike at 24 million euros. The damage caused by today’s works meeting will amount to up to 4 million euros.

The union criticizes the fact that the wage level at AUA is 40 percent lower than at the parent company Lufthansa and is calling for an equalization. “Unfortunately, the AUA’s profits have obviously already been transferred to Germany,” said Vida boss Roman Hebenstreit in the “Morgenjournal”. The Lufthansa Group’s profit of 2.7 billion euros, reported in the media, “apparently is enough to pay fat dividends to the shareholders and the managers ultimately get their bonuses,” said the trade unionist. The AUA must not “degenerate into the bottom of the group”.

“Would have made a loss”

The AUA management also remains tough. “If you simply gave in to the union, then 60 percent of our routes would be negative,” said Matkovits. “With the union’s package, we would actually have made a loss last year, which was a good year for Austrian Airlines.”

Günther Ofner, board member of Vienna Airport and chairman of the aviation industry in the Chamber of Commerce (WKÖ), accuses the union of endangering the entire aviation industry in Austria with its demands. “The flight cancellations provoked by vida and the AUA on-board works council are an action to drive away customers and, above all, play into the hands of the AUA competition,” said Ofner in a broadcast on Thursday. “They not only endanger thousands of jobs in the AUA, but in the entire aviation industry and ultimately also at the airport and in the supplier companies, all of which are ruthlessly taken hostage.”

In the negotiations, the employee side inadmissibly conflated the question of the upcoming inflation compensation with a massive change in the salary structure, which would lead to unaffordable burdens, argues Ofner. “The required structural adjustment cannot be achieved without destroying AUA’s own company.”