Eurowings and ver.di agree on prospects for Lufthansa Group flight attendants

Yesterday, February 4, 2021, following constructive collective bargaining, Eurowings and the Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft (ver.di) reached an agreement that offers flight attendants from the Lufthansa Group who are threatened with job cuts career prospects at Eurowings. In a first step, Eurowings plans to hire up to 130 new employees at the start of the 2021 summer flight schedule, with further hires to follow as soon as demand for air travel within the Eurowings route network makes this possible again.

The collective bargaining agreement provides for new flight attendants joining the company from other Group flight operations to receive financial recognition for their previous professional experience in the Lufthansa Group. Accordingly, an applicant with, for example, 8 years of professional experience in the Group will in future be remunerated as if the career path had taken place in Eurowings. In addition, the probationary period will be eliminated and further hurdles in the hiring process will be removed. New hires will be hired on a full-time or part-time basis at the request of the applicants. The collective bargaining agreement concluded runs until June 30, 2022, and will therefore also govern subsequent hires.

“Despite the tough crisis environment, we are the first union in the Lufthansa Group to have succeeded in creating career prospects for threatened cabin employees across the Group and at the same time to have their professional experience fully recognized financially. This gives hope again to the employees from Germanwings, SunExpress Deutschland and other flight operations of the Group,” emphasizes ver.di negotiator Marvin Reschinsky.

“Tourist air traffic, which Eurowings specializes in as Germany’s largest vacation airline, will recover faster than other segments. With the first hires, we are preparing for a revival of private travel traffic starting in the summer. I am pleased that we can thus offer flight attendants from the Lufthansa Group a new and fair perspective,” said Frank Bauer, Eurowings Managing Director Finance and Human Resources.