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The Lufthansa subsidiary loses almost 2 million francs a day. The cabin crew union has now agreed on a savings package with Swiss. But it has not yet overcome all obstacles.
Fight for working conditions: a Swiss crewman prepares a flight to London for landing.
Photo: Salvatore Di Nolfi (Keystone)
In the fight for the survival of the Swiss, the roughly 4,000 cabin crew members must be prepared for painful cuts. The savings plan that the airline has negotiated with the Kapers union provides for pay cuts and the elimination of vacation days. In addition, crews on long-haul flights are reduced and they fly more frequently.
These are the pillars of the agreement between Swiss and the cabin crew union Kapers, which is presented to this newspaper. Kapers and Swiss also issued a press release late Friday in which they announced the agreement on the savings plans, but without giving details. “The Swiss enables the entire savings package to save an average of 10 percent on cabin crew by the end of 2023,” Kapers said.
Fewer long-term partners
The austerity efforts will affect the next three years. Reducing the number of crews on long-haul routes will provide the greatest savings. Starting next March, Swiss will fly to destinations such as Hong Kong, Singapore or San Francisco with at least one less flight attendant. Example: On a Boeing 777, 14 cabin crew members typically take care of the passengers. Starting in March there will only be 13.
Also, crews should rotate faster. Instead of staying two nights as usual after a long-haul flight to Hong Kong, the stay is reduced to just one night. That means: fewer staff need fewer hotel nights on-site, and instead fly more frequently. That saves money.
Painful loss of wages
However, there are pay cuts: From March to August 2021, Switzerland wants to increase the short-term wages of employees receiving less than 4,000 francs no longer to 100, but only to 95 percent.
In the months after the end of reduced-time work, September through December 2021, all crew members will need to be prepared to receive reduced wages. The principle applies: “Whoever flies more earns more wages”.
An example of this: If a flight attendant flies 100 percent of her planned assignments, she still receives only 95 percent of her salary. If, on the other hand, you can only perform 30 percent of your assignments, the salary falls by a maximum of 10 to 90 percent. There shouldn’t be a bigger discount.
There is no longer 13th salary
More cuts follow: In 2022, the cabin manager’s thirteenth monthly salary will be phased out for a year. Holidays are reduced by up to two days for the entire cabin crew. And in 2023, a pending salary step will be postponed for all those affected.
Union members have yet to approve the savings plan. The approval of two thirds of the votes cast is required. The vote is likely to take place in January.
Union leaders are trying to sugarcoat this bitter pill for their members by saying that the austerity measures are “clearly limited in time.” For the time after that, there will be a new collective bargaining agreement that will bring improvements and that Switzerland will still be ready to conclude if it can count on the solidarity of the cabin crews now in the crisis.
The austerity package is intended to help prevent Switzerland from having to make redundancies. the planned cut of 1,000 jobs You must succeed through early retirement and natural fluctuation. According to Swiss, both the reduction and the cabin crew savings package should cut costs by 10 percent a year.
If the plan is not enough
Whether that’s enough will be decided in the spring of next year. Should it be necessary to terminate the contract, Kapers has already agreed on key points for a partial social plan with Swiss. It affects employees who are only one to three years old on the Swiss payroll. In other words, the last hired must be the first to leave.
According to the plans, those affected should receive the full salary plus CHF 2000 one-time per child during the reporting period. No further payments are foreseen.
Annual loss at sight
Due to travel restrictions, the Swiss business collapsed: in the first nine months, the Lufthansa subsidiary carried 70 percent fewer passengers than in the same period last year. There was an operating loss of around 415 million Swiss francs. Switzerland currently loses between 1.5 and 2 million francs a day. Thanks to federal aid and bank loans, liquidity was not in jeopardy, CFO Markus Binkert had assured.
