Brussels Airlines is cancelling 148 flights from this summer in an attempt to ease the workload for staff members. “Our staff has expressed concern that the workload is too high under these exceptional circumstances. We have listened to them and taken action to ease the workload”, reads a statement from the airline.
The cancellation of 148 flights will have an impact on less than 1% of the passengers, who will be contacted by the airline via e-mail and text message and will immediately receive the details of their new flight.
Maaike Andries, Spokesperson for Brussels Airlines
With the aviation industry starting to get back to pre-covid traffic, airlines and staff members have been having difficulties reaching agreements on worker’s fair wages and workload. Most recently, Brussels Airlines was threatened with strike action from pilots, the conciliation meeting between the unions and the airline on Tuesday not resulting in an agreement.
Maaike Andries, spokesperson for the airline, announced the plan of cancelling a number of flights to help relieve the staff’s workload. “We are entering a busy summer, a summer that is crucial for our industry. The ramping up of the flight schedule after two unusually quiet years to a full summer schedule comes with a huge workload for all of our staff and across the industry. We are amongst others cancelling 148 flights, for which there are sufficient alternatives available to passengers, as we want to meet the staff’s demand for a reduction in the workload”, says Andries.
If the customer is not satisfied with the proposed alternative, we will look at other solutions together. Finally, if no solution is found, the passenger can always request a refund.
Maaike Andries, Spokesperson for Brussels Airlines
The airline also announced they have just concluded a successful recruitment which resulted in 225 additional cabin crew members being hired. The airport staff maintenance department have also recruited extra staff members. Andries highlights that no flights were cancelled due to staff shortages and the proposed flight schedule was fully in line with the workforce and within the agreements of the current CLA.
”We hope that the discussions with the social partners can still be continued in order to find effective solutions for the coming summer. A strike at the beginning of the summer would come at the worst possible time for our passengers, for all our colleagues and for our company which is still trying to climb out of the red every day”, concludes the statement.
