Lufthansa has agreed a new pay deal for around 20,000 of its ground staff, just days after a major strike forced the airline to cancel more than 1,000 flights.
The airline announced that it had agreed “significant” salary increases over the next 18 months with the ver.di trade union, which represents the employees.
Last month, ver.di called a one-day “warning” strike, which led to Lufthansa cancelling nearly all flights from its main hubs of Frankfurt and Munich.
Michael Niggemann, Lufthansa’s chief officer of human resources, said: “We have agreed on large salary increases. It was especially important to us to give disproportionately higher consideration to the lower and middle income groups.
“In view of the continuing high burdens caused by the pandemic and the uncertain economic situation, we have spread the increase in compensation over several stages and created longer-term planning certainty through an 18-month term.”
Christine Behle, deputy chair of ver.di, called the deal with Lufthansa a “good result” for its members, with check-in staff being awarded a salary increase of between 13.6 and 18.4 per cent depending on their length of service.
“It was important to us to achieve this real balance in order to protect the employees in this economically difficult situation,” added Behle. “This result, which makes Lufthansa more attractive as an employer, can also relieve the burden.”
Lufthansa also faces an ongoing wage dispute with its pilots, who have already voted to take industrial action with more negotiations set to take place between the two sides.
Niggemann said Lufthansa’s management was “willing to reach an agreement and was confident that good solutions could also be found” with its pilots’ union VC.
The airline’s parent company Lufthansa Group last week announced a return to profit in the second quarter of this year.