The union representing Iberia’s pilots has agreed to take part in negotiations with the airline’s owner IAG over planned cutbacks.
IAG, which also owns British Airways, has said that Iberia faces a “fight for survival” and wants to cut 4,500 jobs as part of a major restructuring of the Spanish carrier which made an operating loss of €262 million during the first nine months of 2012.
Iberia’s unions have threatened to hold strikes but planned industrial action in the run-up to Christmas was cancelled as the unions agreed to negotiations with IAG.
Pilots who are members of the SEPLA union have now also agreed to talks about job cuts and salary reductions.
“We reached the same agreement with the pilots as we did with the other unions two weeks ago, which is a preliminary agreement for talks," said IAG in a statement.
SEPLA said that the main cause of its conflict with IAG remains the formation of the no-frills subsidiary Iberia Express where pilots are paid around 40 per cent less than their colleagues working for Iberia.
“Since it is necessary to negotiate a multilateral agreement with all groups of the airline, Iberia has invited SEPLA to negotiate "without delay" a transformation plan to solve their problems of competitiveness,” said the union in a statement.
SEPLA is reported to be proposing that its members’ salaries could be cut by up to 10 per cent for current staff and 51 per cent for new recruits.