ENNIO LEANZA
Because of the largely suspended flight operations, Lufthansa registers short-time work for almost two thirds of its employees. The subsidiary Swiss also takes this measure because of the corona virus. (Archive)
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Across the entire group worldwide, Lufthansa applied for short-time work for 87,000 employees between March and April or will do so, said a company spokesman on Wednesday. Last year the number of employees was around 138,000. The group essentially confirmed a report from “Business Insider”.
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Lufthansa had already announced on Monday that more than 30 companies in the group, whose employees have German employment contracts, had already applied for short-time work or were about to do so. “Short-time working has also been agreed for airlines in the Lufthansa Group in Austria, Switzerland and Belgium.”
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Until further notice, Swiss applied for over 9,500 employees for the entire workforce. “How and to what extent this will ultimately be implemented depends very much on the individual areas and the further development of the situation,” said a spokesman at the request of the AWP news agency. The situation is very different and dynamic.
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The company recently reported short-time work for 27,000 employees for the Lufthansa core brand. Here is an agreement with the unions for cabin and floor personnel under one roof. An agreement is still pending with the approximately 5,000 pilots.
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As several industry representatives said, there is still a dispute over the exact conditions, such as an increase in the official short-time allowance by Lufthansa. It is about whether pilots of the cheap subsidiaries Eurowings / Germanwings would get similar conditions as aircraft drivers of the core Lufthansa brand, said an insider. A company spokesman said a solution with the pilots was on the way.
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While the crisis can be cushioned by short-time work in European countries, this model does not exist in many other countries. Lufthansa did not comment on how this should affect the employees there. Around 700 of the approximately 760 Lufthansa aircraft are currently on the ground. Germany’s largest airline is also considering applying for state aid because of the corona virus crisis.
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Swiss also requests federal help. It only flies with a minimal flight schedule and has only six planes in the air. Over 80 planes are on the ground. A task force at the federal government takes care of the application. Representatives of the authorities have so far not wanted to provide information on this.
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