The airline Discover Airlines has criticized the strike announced for Sunday and Monday in the industrial dispute with the pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC). The union had been announced that it would present an improved offer by February 7th, a spokeswoman for the Lufthansa subsidiary told the German Press Agency.
“The fact that the VC is now calling for a strike for the third time in just a few weeks without waiting for the new offer from the employer that they are demanding makes it clear that this is not about good solutions for the employees, but that other interests are being pursued.” said the Discover spokeswoman.
The VC union has called on pilots to stop working for 48 hours up to and including Monday evening.
Union expects high strike participation
“We are convinced that a lot of colleagues will follow the strike call because the approval was very good at 95.6 percent in the strike vote,” a union spokesman told the dpa. “We want to enforce our demands, but we don’t want to cheer for every flight that is canceled. We don’t want to engage in sabotage, but rather market-based collective agreements.”
Discover said that 90 percent of the planned short and medium-haul flights were expected to take place from Frankfurt during the strike. Around 30 percent of connections should be served on long-haul routes. A total of 27 departures are planned from Frankfurt during the strike period. The ten planned departures from Munich would be operated by Lufthansa. Passengers should check their flight status as regularly as possible.
Third strike within a few weeks
It is already the third strike after a five-hour warning strike shortly before Christmas and a regular strike lasting a whole day on Friday last week, after the pilots voted in favor of strikes in a strike vote.
VC is fighting for an initial collective agreement at the airline, which was founded two and a half years ago and operates a total of 24 aircraft. The union considers the negotiations with the employer to have failed for the time being.
It informed its members on Friday that management had not presented an improved offer in recent discussions. The company continues to adhere to the prerequisite of concluding a so-called social partnership charter before a collective agreement is reached. From the VC’s point of view, this should massively restrict the right to strike.
