AUA boss Annette Mann continues to see the airline’s growth and future prospects at risk as employee representatives continue to push for their salary demands for flight crews. “I hope we don’t have to reconsider the AUA,” she said Thursday.
The Lufthansa subsidiary has an “enormous investment mountain” ahead of it and is flying more strongly against low-cost providers than other subsidiaries of the group. If collective bargaining agreements are too high, routes will become unprofitable and the AUA will have to consider whether to discontinue them or operate them with cheaper subsidiaries.
All subsidiaries with their own contracts
The Lufthansa Group has 13 flight activities, the parent company itself only accounts for less than 40 percent of total turnover, Mann calculated in the Ö1-Morgenjournal. All these subsidiaries have their own contracts, with salaries and benefits based on their locations and business models. The AUA boss again rejected the vida union’s demand to bring salaries in line with Lufthansa levels.
“If you compare yourself, you have to compare yourself to the thirteen airlines, and I can only say that AUA is in the right midfield,” says Mann. In addition, the payments would be higher than the KV agreements made in all other sectors in the past eight months.
Negotiations failed again, offer improved
On Wednesday evening, the AUA management and the Vida representatives again failed to reach a result in the 20th round of the KV negotiations, but at least there was rapprochement. The employers have improved their offers for the 3,500 flight attendants and pilots; the previously variable part of 4 percent is now guaranteed.
The supply level has remained the same at 18 percent, spread over two years and ten months. In concrete terms, the AUA is offering a salary increase of 8 percent retroactively from March 1, 2024 and a further 5 percent from January 2025 and January 2026.
Vida wants its members to vote on the offer early next week. The KV negotiations have been interrupted until then. If the offer is rejected, further action by the union is possible. The airline estimates the damage caused by the labor dispute so far at 24 million euros.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
