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09. 02. 12. - 16:00

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09. 02. 12. - 16:00

Price check confirms AUA staff's friendly fire complaints

Austrian Airlines (AUA) employees’ representatives feel confirmed in their criticism of Lufthansa as a price check reveals that the Viennese airline’s German mother company offers cheaper connections.

Comparison by online platform Travel Express shows that a ticket for a Lufthansa flight to Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL) in Delhi, India, cost around 500 Euros less than a ticket for a flight operated by AUA. The Lufthansa connection features one stop at an airport in Europe while AUA offers nonstop connections, according to Austrian business newspapers' reports from today (Thurs).

AUA unionists recently claimed their employer would not get back in the black as long as long as Lufthansa remained its biggest rival. The Austrian aviation company’s executive board rejected such claims. AUA managers said firm-internal codes of conduct kept Lufthansa from offering significantly cheaper tickets for the same connections. They added that Lufthansa would not undercut AUA. The struggling Vienna-based carrier’s board did not comment the results of the latest Travel Express investigation.

AUA staff are currently gearing up for a possible labour conflict after company chairman Jaan Albrecht’s decision to make changes to existing contracts. Albrecht – who headed Star Alliance before taking over at AUA last year – warned that the debt-stricken carrier "would crash against the wall" without intensified attempts to reduce its losses.

Albrecht wants an end to employees’ automatic salary increases every few years. Rumour has it that the executive board head also plans to ask pilots to work longer hours for the same salaries. A further reduction of AUA’s workforce level – the company currently employs 5,800 full-time staff – is also expected. Hundreds of ground personnel and cabin crew lost their jobs since Lufthansa acquired a majority interest in AUA in 2009.

Unionists ignored the two most recent invitations for talks about savings measures by the board. They branded the suggestions of bosses as "insulting" and "nothing worth discussing". AUA employees’ representatives underlined that staff had been affected by several austerity packages in the past years. They said pilots and other employees must not bear the full brunt of the general economic downturn.

A spokesman for the AUA executive board – which consists of Albrecht, Peter Malanik and Andreas Bierwirth – recently said one planned measure which should make the airline more efficient was to allow pilots of affiliate Tyrolean Airways (Austrian Arrows) to operate larger planes. Tyrolean Airways is part of the AUA Group. It focuses on domestic flights while AUA provides connections to destinations across Europe but also to other continents.

AUA was established in 1957. The firm registered 11.26 million passengers in 2011, up by 3.4 per cent compared to the previous year. AUA said it managed to sell around 74 per cent of offered tickets last year. The whole Lufthansa Group counted 106.3 million customers last year. Lufthansa has 117,000 staff. Europe’s busiest aviation enterprise has been headed by German businessman Christoph Franz since January 2011. Austrian Wolfgang Mayrhuber was the carrier’s CEO for seven years before Franz took over.

Austrian Times

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