Eurowings has agreed a collective agreement for growth for the flight operations of Eurowings Germany with Verdi and Vereinigung Cockpit respectively.
“As a result, we are now capable of short-term growth in all Eurowings flight operations,” said Eurowings managing director, Jörg Beissel.
The deal means that from now on crews can apply not only to Eurowings Europe but also to flight operations at Eurowings Germany.
Beissel added: “From now on, we will be advertising positions there for captains, co-pilots, pursers and flight attendants.”
Both collective agreements for growth specify that previous experience will be taken into account in the collective pay scale grouping for cockpit applicants.
A new Eurowings pilot with 5,000 flight hours of flying experience, for example, will be classified in a higher pay scale group than a pilot with 3,000 flight hours of flying experience.
This is immensely important argued Benedict Schneider, head of human resources at Eurowings: “Nobody starts from scratch with us.”
Lufthansa Group’s low-cost airline agreed similar collective agreements for growth for the cabin crew represented by Unabhängige Flugbegleiterorganisation (UFO) and Verdi back in September.
As a result of the collective agreements, Eurowings will increase staff numbers at all German bases (including Düsseldorf, Munich, Stuttgart, Cologne) as well as in Austria and Spain and will expand its fleet by 30 aircraft of the Airbus A320 family by the summer flight schedule 2018.
“As a result, Eurowings will shortly advertise 86 captain’s posts for its co-pilots internally,” said Schneider.
In addition, the staff will receive a lump-sum payment for 2017, an improvement in pensions and a commitment to employment regarding location and the job performed up to June 30th, 2021.
Eurowings has also concluded all existing collective agreements for the cockpit staff of flight operations Eurowings Germany with the service provider union Verdi – in unchanged form.