In Lufthansa's tariff poker with its pilots, there can be a strike at any time - but so far there is no date for this.
Lufthansa submitted a new offer in the morning, which from the perspective of the Vereinigung Cockpit union (VC) was insufficient despite "a step in the right direction", the VC said on Thursday after two days of deliberations by its committees.
Preparations for strike action had begun.
"Nevertheless, it is clear that the Cockpit Association can still be reached," the union gave Lufthansa another chance to prevent strikes and massive flight cancellations with an improved offer.
The company initially did not comment.
The union was on the verge of calling its members to walk out.
That would thwart the travel plans of thousands of passengers, after airlines and airports have been expecting customers to be absent and long waiting times for weeks anyway due to a lack of staff.
VC is demanding a 5.5 percent increase in salary for the more than 5,000 aircraft drivers of the Lufthansa core brand and the freight subsidiary Lufthansa Cargo as of July 1st and automatic inflation compensation from 2023. Lufthansa has agreed to an increase in the salaries of the more than 5,000 pilots by 5, 5 percent ready, but an automatic adjustment for inflation was recently controversial.
Details of the new offer are not known.
The positions are still too far apart, explained VC spokesman Matthias Baier.
"In addition to compensating for the loss in real wages, what we now need above all is a future-proof solution for the remuneration structure in all professional groups." The VC is demanding higher starting salaries and faster increases for young pilots so that they can better shoulder their training costs.
The union members had already spoken out in favor of strikes by a large majority at the end of July.
The collective bargaining parties initially made another attempt at negotiations, which had failed last week.