Lufthansa and pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit agree on pilots’ contributions until 31 March 2022

Lufthansa and the pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) have agreed on pilots’ contributions to help manage the crisis. The agreement runs until March 31, 2022. Current cost-saving measures will not only be continued in the coming year but also supplemented by additional measures. In particular, the agreement includes the basis for an extension of short-time work for pilots in 2021, a reduction in working hours with a corresponding salary adjustment and the suspension of collective pay increases.

These measures apply to pilots at Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo, Lufthansa Aviation Training as well as a subgroup of Germanwings pilots, who make a substantial contribution of up to more than 450 million euros. Together with the support package for 2020 that has already been concluded, short-time working and crisis agreements result in seamless savings totalling up to over 600 million euros up to March 31, 2022, or up to June 30, 2022.

Lufthansa is ruling out layoffs of pilots for operational reasons at Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo, Lufthansa Aviation Training and a subgroup of Germanwings pilots until March 2022.

Michael Niggemann, Executive Board Member for Human Resources and Legal Affairs, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, says: “I am pleased about the further substantial contribution of the cockpit employees to help manage the crisis. We want to use the time covered by this crisis collective agreement to agree on sustainable structural solutions with VC in response to the changed conditions and to be able to avoid layoffs even after the crisis agreement has expired.”

“We are relieved that, despite an extremely unyielding management, we were able to secure the cockpit staff against redundancies for operational reasons at least until March 31, 2022. By reducing cockpit costs, the pilots make the highest individual contribution to the crisis of all employee groups in the Group and thus contribute to better liquidity for Lufthansa”, says Markus Wahl, President of VC.

Lufthansa and VC will therefore be continuing their negotiations under more predictable conditions in 2021 in order to reach an agreement on sustainable solutions for the time after the crisis collective agreement expires.

The crisis agreement is subject to approval by the respective bodies.

23.12.2020

Sources: Lufthansa & Vereinigung Cockpit