Brussels Airlines passengers are likely to experience disruption from 23 to 27 March, amid a four-day strike announced by pilots’ unions and with the threat of further action from 6 April.
Record profits but a 0.5% pay offer
The walkout is the latest move in an ongoing industrial dispute over pay and working conditions. Unions claim Brussels Airlines is not doing enough to redress cuts that were made during the Covid-19 pandemic and, they note, the airline made record figures last year, with an operating (gross) profit of €53 million, finally turning to positive results after posting a gross loss of €74 million in 2022.
Its offers to staff have included a 0.5% pay increase for ground staff in response to a 12.5% request – the gulf between the demand and the offer causing widespread indignation.
“The company [the Lufthansa group, Brussels Airlines’ parent company] chooses to distribute profits to shareholders at the expense of better working conditions for employees,” said ACV Puls union member Jolinde Defieuw.
Workers are invited to join a picket line outside the company headquarters, “B.House” in Diegem between 9 am and 11 am on the first day of the strike and to withhold their labour for the following days, with outstation crews charged with making repositioning flights.
Unrealistic demands?
Addressing complaints about the unequal distribution of airlines’ profits, Brussels Airlines said on Friday, 15 March, that the improvement in the carrier’s fortunes “is not enough to undo all the efforts of the past years”. The company “will do everything possible to avoid a strike”, its spokesperson, Nico Cardone, has previously told media, but its approach currently views union demands as “unrealistic”. It is also blaming unions for escalating the dispute.
“If escalation is sought instead of the solution, then something is wrong,” Michael Niggemann, Lufthansa group’s head of human resources, has said.
Planning, workload and lack of rest
Among other pilot, cabin crew and ground staff grievances are issues with the airline’s planning system, excessive workload, and lack of rest. Strikes planned around Christmas were called off after a “serious and weighty proposal” management offer but since then negotiations have again broken down and walkouts took place in February, hitting half-term breaks.
By striking from next week, and if the walkout warning from 6 April materialises into further concrete action, the airline will be hit across the top and tail ends of the Easter holiday season.
A wave of transport strikes in the public and private sector is sweeping a number of European countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, and Italy, and the UK. Livia Spera, general secretary of the European Transport Workers’ Federation, has identified what she called a pan-European “austerity policy,” for stripping resources away from transportation.
