After flight cancellations due to industry-wide bottlenecks in aviation, Deutsche Lufthansa is now also threatened with failures due to a strike.

The pilots' union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) has lost patience after six rounds of collective bargaining without an agreement.

The union initiates a ballot, which can result in strikes.

Timo Kotowski

Editor in Business.

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According to information from the FAZ, the vote is to be initiated this Thursday and then run until July 31st.

If 70 percent of union members with voting rights vote in favor of work stoppages, strikes would be possible as early as August.

At the end of last year, the union terminated the wage agreement for the pilots of the Lufthansa core brand and Lufthansa Cargo with effect from June 30.

At the time, there was an upset that talks about a follow-up agreement on an expiring crisis pact in the corona pandemic had got stuck.

From the point of view of the union, there has been no rapprochement to date, for which the VC blames Lufthansa.

Union misses corporate offer

"We were very patient throughout all rounds of negotiations," says VC circles.

However, the group had not submitted its own offer in the previous talks.

Instead, a lot of time was spent discussing the union demands without taking a final position on them.

"The employer could not or did not want to comment on whether he is willing to accept our demands," says a VC member circular that is available to the FAZ.

Within the union there is talk of delaying tactics by the group.

The core of the VC calls for a salary increase of 5.5 percent for the pilots retrospectively as of July 1st.

An automatic adjustment for inflation should take effect from next year.

In addition, there are points such as the demand for a "uniform remuneration structure" and adjustments for co-pilots.

Lufthansa affirms its willingness to reach an agreement

The subsidiary Eurowings had agreed to an agreement linking remuneration to inflation.

Since the agreement there was reached before inflation picked up sharply, not everyone on the employer side is likely to be happy with the result, to put it mildly.

Meanwhile, Lufthansa asserts that it wants to find a solution for the pilots of the core brand in negotiations.

"We want to work together to develop sustainable solutions that take into account both the increased inflation and the economic performance of the company," said a company spokesman.

This would also be preferred in VC circles.

But in the event that it is not possible to increase the pace towards an agreement, they want to be ready to strike by the beginning of August.

Aside from the dispute over future salaries, there is another issue of conflict.

Lufthansa had terminated a so-called perspective agreement last December.

The stipulated that at least 325 aircraft are flown by pilots who are subject to the group collective agreement.

The fleet commitment could not be maintained.

"There will be less demand in the foreseeable future," the group justified the move at the time.

Most recently, however, CEO Spohr is said to have said internally that the termination would not have been necessary if one had been a little more optimistic at the time.

To the displeasure of the VC, however, the group is pushing ahead with plans for a new subsidiary with different tariff conditions.