Pre-agreement on voluntary departures between Brussels Airlines Management and two out of three trade unions

Socialist (BBTK/SETCa) and liberal (ACLVB/CGSLB) unions have signed a pre-agreement with the management of Brussels Airlines on a voluntary departure plan under the “Reboot” plan, which aims at achieving an EBIT margin of 8% by 2022 through, among other things, cost savings of more than 160 million euros on an annual basis. Job losses would be compensated with a plan of voluntary departure.

The plan does not concern flight crew and teams on the tarmac, but only administrative ground staff (800 people out of more than 4,000 employees). A similar plan must be negotiated later for the flight crew – pilots and cabin crew.

The Christian trade union (ACV/CNE Puls) was excluded from the talks, following its refusal to endorse the plan presented by the management. The union sees “Reboot” as a restructuring plan which does not say its name in order to avoid the Renault procedure for collective layoffs.

Management will not disclose more on the details of the pre-agreement, because it wants to leave the scoop for internal communication to its employees. However, it is already known that the departures will be discussed department by department and will take place gradually until 2022. The pre-agreement also includes a possibility of early retirement for workers over 58 years of age.

Brussels Airlines said the preliminary agreement would be officially signed by the end of this week.