Pilot strike announced for 22-25 February at Lufthansa

[airtrotter]

it seems the strike will go through as planned....wow, that's a blow to LH's image and most probably their finances. Too bad.
(i won't speak out on the subject itself, too little knowledge here)

grs

[diminbru]

WOW you are getting so carried away by this LH pilot strike..

Yes, because it affects me personally with my travel plans. But even more, because its result may very well affect the future of SN much more than the question if and when the 6th A330 may arrive or may not arrive, believe it or not ...

oh sorry my mistake, I had the impression that you had pleasure that there is 'trouble' in the LH family...

[euroflyer]

Isn't Augsburg Airways flying ERJ 195s ? Same for Cityline which also has the Avrojet RJ85 in its fleet. Is this not an inconsistency in their statement ? Has someone got more insight into this ?

They do indeed, but that is exactly the domestic part of the dispute as has been said above correctly by tolipanebas. You will notice that Augsburg Airways does not operate the ERJ 195s as "LH regional", but as "Augsburg Airways" and LH is type of 'codesharing' on those flights. Exactly for this reason. The have the same c/s on the ERJs 195 as for LH regional, but without the letters "LH regional" ! For Cityline there has been, if I remember correct a specific collective agreement with VC allowing the operation of a certain number of bigger planes as the Avros and the CRJ 900s have already been bigger than 70 seats as well and the ERJs are replacing the Avros now here.

[brusselsairlinesfan]

Will brussels airlines operate own aircrafts on behalf of LH to FRA/MUC and eventually Stuttgart during the pilots strike?

[sn26567]

Will brussels airlines operate own aircrafts on behalf of LH to FRA/MUC and eventually Stuttgart during the pilots strike?

No. Here is the current situation.

LH will operate all its flights from BRU to MUC, STR, NUE, HAJ: they are indeed operated by Cityline or other regional airlines. LH has also operated the first two morning flights from BRU to FRA (one aircraft overnighted in Brussels and I guess the pilots wanted to go back home - the other one came in this morning from FRA, the only flight that was maintained) and will operate two of the evening flights with regional jets from its franchises. All other flights from BRU to FRA are cancelled.

SN has operated its only (morning) flight to/from FRA with a 737. The SN flights to/from TXL and HAM run normally (the first flight to TXL was also a 737).

[sn26567]

It seems that tomorrow the only flights between BRU and FRA will be those two operated by Cityline in the afternoon. SN will again operate its only morning flight with a 737.

[brusselsairlinesfan]

Will brussels airlines operate own aircrafts on behalf of LH to FRA/MUC and eventually Stuttgart during the pilots strike?

No. Here is the current situation.

LH will operate all its flights from BRU to MUC, STR, NUE, HAJ: they are indeed operated by Cityline or other regional airlines. LH has also operated the first two morning flights from BRU to FRA (one aircraft overnighted in Brussels and I guess the pilots wanted to go back home - the other one came in this morning from FRA, the only flight that was maintained) and will operate two of the evening flights with regional jets from its franchises. All other flights from BRU to FRA are cancelled.

SN has operated its only (morning) flight to/from FRA with a 737. The SN flights to/from TXL and HAM run normally (the first flight to TXL was also a 737).

All the flights from BRU to MUC, STR, NRN, HAJ are operated by LH Cityline all year round?!

[RoMax]

All the flights from BRU to MUC, STR, NUE, HAJ are operated by LH Cityline all year round?!

STR, NUE, HAJ is always operated by LH cityline/Eurowings/Regional. Only MUC has some of their daily flights operated by LH mainline, but not all. And even these flights are operated all by LH Cityline in some periods.

[brusselsairlinesfan]

All the flights from BRU to MUC, STR, NRN, HAJ are operated by LH Cityline all year round?!

STR, NRN, HAJ is always operated by LH cityline/Eurowings/Regional. Only MUC has some of their daily flights operated by LH mainline, but not all. And even these flights are operated all by LH Cityline in some periods.

Thanks for this much appreciated info... and what about BRU-FRA?!

[website-info]

since when did LH fly NRN (Niederhien) to Brussels ? If we're going to use codes on here at least put the right ones in - in this instance I can only assume we refer to NUE (Nuremburg)

I stand to be corrected

[RoMax]

since when did LH fly NRN (Niederhien) to Brussels ? If we're going to use codes on here at least put the right ones in - in this instance I can only assume we refer to NUE (Nuremburg)

I stand to be corrected

Oh yes indeed it's NUE, I just took over the code from the earlier posts about this and I didn't really take care if they were correct or not. :p

[tolipanebas]

Frankfurt labour court has just decided LH pilots should temporarily halt the strike and resume operations as from tomorrow morning, after LH entered a request for an emergency verdict on the matter.

What a mess...

[easyland]

British airways cabin staff has voted (at 70%) for a strike, the date will be precised Thursday.
3 of Air France pilot's Unions have announced a strike for Friday.
And from tomorrow we'll see again the famous "French ATC Industrial action", at least 25% of flights will be cancelled!

[tolipanebas]

British airways cabin staff has voted (at 70%) for a strike, the date will be precised Thursday.
3 of Air France pilot's Unions have announced a strike for Friday.
And from tomorrow we'll see again the famous "French ATC Industrial action", at least 25% of flights will be cancelled!

LH and VC have just decided to resume negotiations which broke down previously: VC will not revert to any surprise actions till March 8th and LH will come with a new (and hopefully improved) proposal in the mean time.

Fingers crossed, because so far, there were only loosers in this conflict!

[tolipanebas]

More in-depth information, under the title Lufthansa gives in, can be found here (German text):

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wirtschaft/ ... y/17367977

[euroflyer]

Frankfurt labour court has just decided LH pilots should temporarily halt the strike and resume operations as from tomorrow morning, after LH entered a request for an emergency verdict on the matter.

What a mess...

Do not want to be over-correct (does that word exist in English?) here, but the facts are: the labour court has NOT decided anything. During the proceedings before the court the judge PROPOSED to both sides to continue negotiations and gave some hints what her decision would be, if the court had to take one. That was enough to continue negotiations ... VC has been convinced by the judge, that there is no possibility to negotiate in German national collective bargaining on the salaries for pilots at foreign subsidiaries (mainly LH Italia) and that there is as well no possibility to agree in German collective bargaining on management decisions regarding other foreign subsidiaries (what a surprise to everybody ). If you ask me (my personal opinion) a quite big blow for VC and I am not sure how they will explain that to their members after all the action of the last days. Anyway, the bargaining is now hopefully back to normal, discussing "just" salaries and maybe the split of activities between LH mainline and outsourcing to domestic daughter companies. Lets wait and see.

But it is indeed a mess

[euroflyer]

I can only assume we refer to NUE (Nuremburg)
I stand to be corrected

I assume you refer to NÜRNBERG?

[tolipanebas]

Do not want to be over-correct (does that word exist in English?) here, but the facts are: the labour court has NOT decided anything. During the proceedings before the court the judge PROPOSED to both sides to continue negotiations and gave some hints what her decision would be, if the court had to take one. That was enough to continue negotiations ...

You're not being over-corrective indeed, but note the time I posted this news, less than 2 minutes after the end of the court session, when no other news source was even bringing it, not even LH's own website!

An SMS can't contain all the subtile details unfortunately...

Indeed, it was no court ORDER, but a mutual agreement by both parties IN FRONT of the court. Correction for this was made in my later posts, but thanks for pointing that out half a day later, once more

VC has been convinced by the judge, that there is no possibility to negotiate in German national collective bargaining on the salaries for pilots at foreign subsidiaries (mainly LH Italia) and that there is as well no possibility to agree in German collective bargaining on management decisions regarding other foreign subsidiaries

Now you're getting political, as you are just assuming things to be as you'd want them to be.

It is correct there is no legal requirement for a German company to negotiate foreign labour rules with its German unions first, but if they do (like LH has done in the past, notably on LH Italia), they it must respect them.

What happened is that VC has agreed to dropping the multi-million euro claim regarding LH not respecting a previous agreement between them and the LH Italia operations for the time being, not because the claim is injust like you seem to suggest, but to show goodwill and to limit the scope of the negotiations about to be restarted, so there is at least some chance of success by the 8th or March.

In return, LH has agreed it will continue to negotiate with VC on this aspect in future as well, even though it is not legally required to do so indeed; quite a big difference from the 'fuck you' attitude, which you display here, I must say.

If you ask me (my personal opinion) a quite big blow for VC and I am not sure how they will explain that to their members after all the action of the last days. Anyway, the bargaining is now hopefully back to normal, discussing "just" salaries and maybe the split of activities between LH mainline and outsourcing to domestic daughter companies. Lets wait and see.

How they will explain?

Let me see.

LH has agreed it will negotiate with VC on all the issues they might have with them (even those deemed unacceptable until recently) and has promissed it wants to come to a salary agreement not only for LH mainline, but also wants a framework agreement for the entire group...

Doesn't that sound awfully like what the unions asked for only 2 days ago, yet was then deemed totally unacceptable by LH as it was considered interfering with the the business strategies of the airline?

Excuse me, but you seem to be a bit too eager to explain the events as an outright victory for management, whereas that's obviously not the case if you look at them factually; not such a big fan of unions I take (also in reference to your previous posts in this topic)?

[euroflyer]

tolipanebas, I really appreciate your high level of knowledge and know-how (more than I have usually!) you always bring into this forum (and I mean this!), but here I feel you really get carried away by simply re-publishing the VC communications and believing them more or less blind.

One has to know that this strike happened before the background of the recent development of labour relations in Germany and court decisions of the highest German labour court (BAG for those who are interested) regarding strike action of small unions representing only one specific part of employees (like pilots or train drivers etcetera). This kind of actions is absolutely unusual in Germany ('normally' all employees of one company who are in a union are in the same union, called 'one company - one union principle'), but these small unions are getting "more popular". And those very few small unions, like VC, are working hard to get their way. The full-scale 4-day strike which had been announced needs to be seen before that background as well. It was designed to show their power not only regarding the actual dispute, but as well in principle. Stopping this strike after less than 24h and after LH asked the first level court to declare it unlawful and actually after less than 2 hours of actually being in court is - believe it or not - a big blow for VC and other small unions representing only one small part of employees in a company.

I will not comment on all your other points, but I could not buy your explanation of why VC stopped it:

LH has agreed it will negotiate with VC on all the issues they might have with them (even those deemed unacceptable until recently) and has promissed it wants to come to a salary agreement not only for LH mainline, but also wants a framework agreement for the entire group...
Doesn't that sound awfully like what the unions asked for only 2 days ago, yet was then deemed totally unacceptable by LH as it was considered interfering with the the business strategies of the airline?

It does not sound at all like what VC has asked for, sorry. It sounds exactly like what has been done already for the past 12 months or so. To negotiate together about salaries and, yes indeed, the role of domestic subsidiaries and maybe the special case of LH Italia, but without LH promising anything here which goes near an influence on strategic management decisions. As LH has offered all the time, this negotiations will continue. That could as well have happened without the strike ... So no result here.

The only result is that is has been made much harder for both sides now to find a solution at the negotiations table as the expectations of pilots are higher than they were before (because their strike needs to show some result in their eyes) and because LH is under more public surveillance (and from other companies) to produce a result which does not alter German labour relations too much as it would have been without the public strike.

not such a big fan of unions I take (also in reference to your previous posts in this topic)?

Wrong, a big fan of professional and efficient unions working for the best of employees and their members. But no fan of unprofessional unions following an egoistic agenda to strengthen their leaders and their organizations as such without really working for the best of all employees of a company or a sector. And this strike action was unfortunately a perfect example for the second type of union.

But of course I respect that there is always the possibility to have a different view on all this ...

You're not being over-corrective indeed, but note the time I posted this news, less than 2 minutes after the end of the court session, when no other news source was even bringing it, not even LH's own website!
An SMS can't contain all the subtile details unfortunately...

Well, my SMS had the full information, only I was in a dinner event without the possibility to post anything last evening ...

But I feel maybe it is time now to rest this dispute here and let both parties negotiate (hopefully behind well closed doors) and find a good result before 8 March. However, if I were a staff member of SN I would prefer to follow closely what the result will be and to ensure it does not limit the future growth potential of SN by favoring LH mainline above all other group companies. And sorry, that was one of the main points of VC during the last days ...

[diminbru]

However, if I were a staff member of SN I would prefer to follow closely what the result will be and to ensure it does not limit the future growth potential of SN by favoring LH mainline above all other group companies.

but you are not an SN staff member, so you don't have to worry about it