On Sunday 06 March 2022 the CEO approached both Unions with a request to temporarily increase the limit of the number of Captains employed as “travailleur intérimaire” or on short term contracts from 10 to 20 for at least the next 2 years.
Following this urgent request, the Unions met this morning, Tuesday 08 March 2022, with the CEO to discuss how this amendment could possibly be made acceptable for you, our members.
In this meeting the CEO explained that the reason for his request is the ongoing COVID pandemic and the impact of airspace closures caused by the war in Ukraine on the airline’s operation. This would position the company in a situation where management finds it increasingly challenging to fly the normal schedule without significant delays and that profitable charter opportunities could not be considered.
We highlighted in the meeting this morning again, that in particular the pilots are heavily affected by the implications related to the pandemic, e.g., continued in-room confinement, or frequent long duty periods, often resulting in duty periods only be possible to complete applying commander’s discretion. Furthermore, it was explained that the implementation of the Jeppesen Crew Rostering Tool resulted in a lot of frustration within the pilot group deteriorating the morale of the pilot community to an all time low.
As we acknowledge the implications of the ongoing pandemic combined with the added impact of the war in the Ukraine and that the pilots could possibly consider the request, we suggested today’s meeting with the aim to discuss how this request could be made acceptable to our members before we as Board would even consider presenting a possible solution to our members for a vote.
Based on the feedback we received from our members, we presented the following points which we believe would make it acceptable for our members to support the requested amendment:
- Continued limitation of the fleet size of Cargolux Italia to remain at 4 aircraft.
- Any new aircraft type to be operated by Cargolux Luxembourg under the terms and conditions of the Collective Work Agreement.
- A guaranteed number of promotions to Captain.
- The implementation of some changes to the PBS request functions, which would allow splitting of Off- Days around Vacation Days and the implementation of a limited number of “VIP days” allowing pilots to put some more weight for special dates.
However, to our disappointment, we had to realize that the CEO was not open to any discussion and categorically refused to consider the above-mentioned points.
In light of the current situation, it is absolutely incomprehensible to us that management totally disregard legitimate concerns and show no willingness at all to mitigate justified hardships that we are meanwhile permanently exposed to. Such an amendment of the CWA that results in being exclusively beneficial for the company is not acceptable to us.
With the upcoming CWA negotiations this should provide us with a good indication what we have to expect in these negotiations.
