The one-day strike by the flying staff of Lufthansa subsidiary Discover Airlines has ended. The pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) and the cabin union UFO announced this early in the morning. The participation of the workforce in the cockpit and cabin was overwhelming; A number of flights either did not take place according to plan or were not carried out at all, UFO said. The two unions began the strike on Friday night.
The comparatively small holiday airline with 24 aircraft was unable to fly ten connections on behalf of its parent company Lufthansa in Munich and had to cancel four of 14 planned takeoffs in Frankfurt. According to Discover, the remaining flights were offered by Discover itself or by partner airlines. The connections from Munich were flown by Lufthansa itself.
The collective bargaining dispute is about initial collective agreements in the holiday airline, which was founded two and a half years ago and is intended to be cheaper than the Lufthansa core brand and to compete with holiday airlines such as the Condor. The company announced that it would “promptly” increase the salaries for the pilots on a voluntary basis, as has already happened in the cabin with retroactive effect to September 2023.
VC collective bargaining officer Marcel Gröls said after the strike that the workforce was absolutely determined. “As long as there is no offer that we believe is negotiable, we will have to continue to increase the pressure.” UFO negotiator Harry Jaeger described “this first strike measure” as a complete success. “The cabin understands what it’s worth and this realization will slowly trickle down to management.”
