Cargolux

Luxair´s sudden cancellation of the staff travel agreement for Cargolux employees a couple weeks ago came as a surprise to all of us. After having lost all travel benefits on our own airplanes this development was rather a big setback for many of our members, especially for those who are dependent on Luxair ID tickets for commuting to and from work.
 
Meanwhile we have been informed by our CEO that Luxair proposed a new staff travel agreement to Cargolux, which covers both business travel and private travel for Cargolux staff. 
 
On 28 July 2020 the CEO requested the feedback from the Delegation to Luxair’s proposal regarding private travel. This proposal contains an increase of approximately 80% for the cost of a one-way ID staff ticket, which would be – more or less – in line with the revised travel-agreement implemented by Luxair for their own staff. 
 
After due consideration (lack of alternatives, flexible and cheaper ID tickets versus inflexible and expensive full fare tickets, the urgency of a timely reintroduction of the staff travel agreement, the risk of losing all travel benefits) the Delegation advised management in a letter dated 29 July 2020 to accept the proposal from Luxair. Nevertheless, a possibility to renegotiate the travel agreement after the COVID 19 crisis was mentioned in this letter. You can find the Delegation’s feedback following this link.
 
It was only in the CEO’s response to the Delegation’s feedback, that we learned, that Luxair’s proposal covers also “other business travel” Cargolux undertakes with Luxair and that “Cargolux will be looking at the overall package to the business in deciding if it represents value to the company or not.“
 
On Saturday, 08 August 2020, the CEO informed the Delegation that he approached Luxair with “a request for an improved offer for private travel for our employees but have not heard anything to date” and that he was still waiting for a response. 
 
We will keep you informed about any developments.

The Know Your CWA page has been updated by adding information regarding Delayed Reporting.

Click here or on the ‘CWA’ menu item to access this page.

On Friday, 17 July 2020, we again discussed the cancellation of the Staff Travel Agreement for Cargolux staff with the CEO. We stressed that this is a pressing issue for many of our members, which requires urgent attention. 

The CEO assured that he is aware of the impact caused by this cancellation. Unfortunately, to this date Cargolux has not received any feedback from Luxair on this issue yet.

For the time being, raising this topic whenever possible is all we as your Board can do to get this agreement reinstated. As stated before, this will mostly be at the discretion of Luxair.

As explained before, the government has asked for a meeting between the Unions, Luxair, Cargolux, Luxairport and government representatives, also referred to as “Tripartite pour le secteur de l ´aviation”. The meeting is now scheduled to take place in the morning of 14 July 2020.
 
At this point it is still unclear what the government’s agenda items are but considering the general economic situation of the global aviation industry we realize that we are not immune against those challenges and that our fortunate situation working for a cargo airline could be jeopardized.
 
It must be noted, that only the extraordinary dedication and commitment of its pilots, who often accept considerable personal sacrifices, allowed Cargolux to play a significant role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and to achieve the results of the past few months. 
 
Cargolux benefited from the increased demand for airfreight capacity in recent months. However, in light of the global economic crisis this could change any time and we could face similar problems as we see in many other airlines including Luxair. Considering this and how Luxair and Cargolux are interconnected, we must not neglect the fact, that changes within Luxembourg’s airline industry may be required, which in consequence could also have a negative impact on Cargolux.
 
In order to show the commitment of the Cargolux pilots and that their extraordinary dedication during the crisis shall not be forgotten by the government and the airline – when the future of Luxembourg’s aviation sector will be discussed in the Tripartite – the LCGB asks all Cargolux Pilots members to join the 
 

Rallye for the future – United for the future
of Luxembourg’s aviation sector!
 
14 July 2020
08.00 h
 
In front of the
 
Ministère de la Mobilité et des Travaux publics

4, Place de l’Europe
L-1499 Luxembourg

As much as anyone else, we were surprised to learn that Luxair decided to cancel the Staff Travel Agreement for Cargolux staff without any prior notice or indication that this may happen. This agreement was effectively the only staff rate agreement which many of our members relied on to commute to/from Luxembourg and we as your Board are very well aware about the consequences of this cancellation.

Immediately after we received the email from Corporate Communication, we did get in touch with the CEO. He advised us that Luxair did not provide Cargolux management with any prior notification about the cancellation nor did he receive a courtesy call before. 

In this telephone conversation we also made it clear again, that this cancellation has huge consequences for many Cargolux pilots who rely on the agreement. The CEO assured that he is aware about this fact and explained that he will investigate about the reasons why Luxair cancelled this contract.

Unfortunately, for the time being this is all we as your Board can do. As your representatives we will do whatever we can to get this agreement reinstated. However, please note that this will for the most part be at the discretion of Luxair.

Please find below an update in regard to:

• Pilot Representatives – Management Meetings
• New CWA FTL Provisions

Pilot Representatives – Management Meetings
With this members update we would like to inform you and explain how we as Pilot Representatives see and saw the collaboration between Cargolux management and us during the current COVID-19 crisis.

There are regular meetings taking place between the Pilot Representatives and Senior Management. The priority aim of these meetings, which happened until now at least once per week, is to communicate – according to the feedback from the members – and mitigate the risks for the flight crews/staff related to COVID-19. 

There are, however, secondary impacts of the crisis that impair our daily work life as pilots like freedom of movement at certain stations, nutrition and comfort at destinations, where we take our rest. These items are partially defined and taken care of in the provisions of our CWA, but unfortunately we have been faced with a number of violations of our CWA defined standards and internal policies, which almost all being related to the hotels we take our rest in.

While we as Pilot Representatives also RESPONSIBLY offer solutions to mitigate these secondary effects, we unfortunately perceive Senior Management to be overly hesitating, apparently because of cost reasons. We managed to convince management of certain measures to improve both safety and comfort, like allocation of suites during layovers in SIN and BKK for example, but the efforts necessary to convince our social partner remain unnecessarily high.

To summarize, we find Senior Management approachable in terms of health and security measures, but too reluctant when it comes to making sure that the provisions of the CWA and internal policies are respected in light of the crisis.

Unilateral decisions, particularly when short notice changing the hotels in COVID-19 or unrest hotspots, e.g. in HKG or the US, ignoring the respective policies and standards, not consulting the hotel committee turned out to be detrimental to our organization causing delays and therefore having a negative financial impact.

Despite those aggravating facts and after several discussions, the Board decided to continue the constructive approach dealing with management. Please rest assured that this does not mean that the difficult conditions down route are simply accepted from our side or your feedback is ignored. 

We encourage management to be cooperative not falling for the trap of trying to perform cost cutting over a pilot community that voluntarily goes the extra mile. Strangling that momentum by turning a blind eye on our rights is something that the ALPL Board does not approve and cannot ignore.

New CWA FTL Provisions
As of 01July 2020 new CWA provisions covering flight time limitations for Standard and Augmented Crew operation came into effect. With the aforementioned management attitude to disrespect our rights on occasions, we might be faced with attempted non compliances in regard to these new FTL rules.

We have started to send out updated versions of the „Know your CWA“ series. This is done in order to support you to familiarize yourself with the new FTLs and to allow you to enforce the correct applications of the new rules.

As it was very hard to achieve the new FTLs to mitigate adverse effects of fatigue we would like to ask you to familiarize yourself with the changes and to politely but firmly insist in the application of those rules. Remember, it will depend on us as individuals being part of the Cargolux pilot community to ensure, that these new rules are followed.

Notwithstanding of the above, we would like to emphasize that neither EASA nor the CWA alone can completely avoid fatigue. Therefore we URGE EVERY pilot to file a fatigue report if fatigue was a factor on any FDP. This is the only tool to get real time fatigue data in combination with planned FDPs and to identify new hotspots!

If you have any questions regarding the new FTLs please don’t hesitate to contact your ALPL Board via mail at cvboard@alpl.lu for clarification.

As we also experienced that your voyage reports make a difference we would also like to further encourage you to thoroughly assess your ability to perform a flight duty when faced with unacceptable standards during your rest period, file the respective reports on those deficiencies and send a copy of the report to cvhotels@alpl.lu

Fly safe, stay healthy.

A recording of the Divisional Assembly 2020 is available online.

We encourage everyone, who was not able to attend the assembly on 02 July 2020 to watch this screencast.

In case you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact your ALPL Board at cvboard@alpl.lu. 

With increasing COVID-19 cases in many countries, it has become obvious that we will be confronted with this pandemic for an undetermined time and that it is far from over. The hotspots keep on changing and the dynamics are experienced by all of us through e.g. frequent roster changes and restrictions while having a layover. 
 
Commercial Positioning
It has been communicated by management in early June that commercial positioning between selected airports and on selected airlines will resume. However, given the general situation in the US and a pilot report that we recently received, the Delegation sent a letter to Senior Management with the request to immediately stop commercial positioning within the US. Please click here to read the letter.
 
Application of the CWA
We would like to remind you of the new FTL in the CWA that are applicable as of 1 July 2020. Please familiarize yourself with the respective paragraphs. Information can also be found by reading our “Know your CWA 2020” series that was sent to you via email and is also available on our ALPL website under Publications/Cargolux Board/Know Your CWA.  
 
Having said this we would like to reiterate, that there is no agreement between the Unions and the company for a derogation of elements within the CWA because of COVID-19. We have been informed by individual members that e.g. crew control mentioned towards them that the rules in the CWA governing “back to back” operation are waived. This is not the case and it is still up to the individual pilot to accept any deviation from the CWA. Should you be faced with such a statement by crew control, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via cvboard@alpl.lu for clarification.
 
Sectional Tripartite
The government has asked for a meeting between the Unions, Luxair, Cargolux, Luxairport and government representatives, also referred to as “Tripartite pour le secteur de l ´aviation”, in July. At this point it is unclear what the government’s agenda items are but considering the general economic situation of the global aviation industry we realize that we are not immune against those challenges and that our fortunate situation could be jeopardized. We will keep you informed. 
 
 
Stay safe and healthy!

The Know Your CWA page has been updated by adding information regarding FDP for an Augmented Flight Crew.

Click here or on the ‘CWA’ menu item to access this page.