Lufthansa and its passengers cannot relax. The cabin union UFO has called on around 19,000 flight attendants at Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cityline to go on strike on Tuesday and Wednesday (March 12/13). UFO announced that there will be a strike from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Tuesday on all departures from Frankfurt and on Wednesday on all departures from Munich. The flight attendants of the core company and the regional subsidiary Lufthansa Cityline had previously voted for the strike in separate ballots with more than 96 percent each.
Ufo emphasized that the group had only announced a record result of almost 1.7 billion euros in net profit on Thursday – the third best in the company’s history. “The cabin must now also participate in this success and the concessions that were made during the Corona crisis must be sufficiently compensated,” said Joachim Vázquez Bürger, UFO board chairman.
Demands: More money and an inflation premium
For the approximately 18,000 cabin employees at Lufthansa and the almost 1,000 employees at Cityline, UFO is essentially demanding 15 percent more money with a contract term of 18 months. The union also wants to achieve an inflation compensation bonus of 3,000 euros and higher allowances. In the separate collective bargaining negotiations, the union rejected the respective offers as inadequate.
The Independent Flight Attendants Organization (UFO), founded in 1992, is a sectoral union that exclusively represents flight attendants, primarily at Condor and the Lufthansa Group. In individual flight operations, it competes closely with the DGB union Verdi, which also wants to organize the flying staff. Coordinated cooperation between the two hostile unions is unlikely.
In the post-Corona year of 2022, UFO was the only union in the Lufthansa Group to refrain from industrial action. In the collective bargaining agreement, the lower wage groups in particular were raised, while the inflation compensation bonus was postponed until the current collective bargaining round.
Verdi will continue negotiations from Wednesday
Last week, the ground staff organized by Verdi paralyzed much of Lufthansa’s passenger traffic with their fifth wave of warning strikes. The final effects of the strike, which lasted more than two days, were still felt this morning with some flight cancellations and delays.
In addition to an inflation compensation bonus of 3,000 euros, Verdi is demanding salary increases of 12.5 percent for a period of twelve months for the ground staff. The next round of negotiations is scheduled to begin next Wednesday.