Lufthansa has reached a short-term agreement with the pilots’
union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) for cost-cutting measures that will delay any
potential redundancies made necessary by a reduction in operations until 31
March 2021 at the earliest.
The measures apply to pilots working for Lufthansa,
Lufthansa Cargo, Lufthansa Aviation Training and some at Germanwings. Cost savings
will come in the form of reducing top-up payments for short-time working
compensation benefits and employer contributions to the company’s pension
scheme from September onwards, as well as postponing collective wage increases
negotiated for 2020 until January 2021.
However, Lufthansa said “the significant overcapacity of
pilots will last considerably beyond March 2021” and has called on VC to
negotiate a longer-term crisis package that could include a reduction in working
hours and salary to make up for the excess staff.
Lufthansa has also said it will not hire new pilots from
outside the group as long as there is an overcapacity of existing cockpit
staff, which will also apply to tourist-oriented flight operations, which will
be open to pilots from Sun Express Deutschland and the German base of Brussels
Airlines.
Meanwhile, negotiations with representatives of Germanwings
cockpit staff are still ongoing after Lufthansa announced it would close the
carrier due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Lufthansa, which reported a €2.9 billion loss for the first half of 2020, announced in June that it was considering cutting up to 22,000 jobs in a restructuring move to reduce costs for the duration of the coronavirus crisis.