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#1 Frankfurt, four years, long haul, and I have mentioned the union and the collective agreement in other threads without explaining them, and non German crew ask. So, the Lufthansa structure, from inside it.
The collective agreement (Tarifvertrag)
A negotiated contract between the airline and the cabin crew union (UFO, in our case, with ver.di also present) that sets pay scales by seniority, duty and rest limits that go beyond the legal minimum, allowances, the pension contribution, and the process for almost everything. It is renegotiated every few years and the negotiation is public and sometimes involves strikes. Every crew member is on the same agreement. There are no individual deals.
What it means day to day
My duty time limits are stricter than the EASA minimums. My rest after a long haul is longer than the legal minimum. My pay goes up on a published scale every year and I can see exactly where I will be in ten years. When a duty runs over, it is paid at a rate the agreement sets. When the airline wants to change something, it negotiates. This is the thing Karl and I mean when we say Eurowings and Lufthansa are different: the agreements are different and the Lufthansa one is stronger and older.
The seniority ladder
Long. Frankfurt long haul has crew with thirty years. The roster is bid and the bids are honoured in seniority order, so year four gets what year four gets: a mix of the popular and the unpopular long hauls, some short haul, and the Chicago, which I get three times a month because it is a route that the senior crew have moved on from and I have not. I like Chicago. I have written about it. The ladder will move me off it eventually and I will miss it.
What the union actually does
Negotiates the agreement, obviously. Represents crew in disciplinary matters, which matters more than people think until they need it. Runs the works council, which has a say in rostering rules and base decisions. And, in the strikes, which are rare and real, stops the airline for a day or two to make a point about pay. The strikes are unpopular with passengers and the press and they are why the agreement is what it is.
For foreign applicants
German is required, the assessment is in German, and the agreement applies to you exactly as to a German crew member from day one. The pay scale is public. Look at it before applying. It is not Gulf money. It is a German salary with a German pension and German protections and a long haul network, and after four years I would not swap it.
Questions from the non German crew who find this strange welcome.
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#2 Munich, and everything Hannah says, and the strikes are the thing the foreign applicants find strangest and the thing that explains everything else. We have the agreement because we have stopped the airline. That is the mechanism.
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#3 Eurowings, and our agreement is younger and weaker and the difference is felt in the rest rules and the pay scale, exactly as Hannah says. I chose the lifestyle over the agreement. She chose the agreement over the lifestyle. Both of us understood the choice.
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#4 SAS, and the Scandinavian structure is the same shape: one agreement, a union that negotiates it, strikes that are rare and real, protections that the agency contract crew of Europe cannot imagine. Northern Europe works like this. It is why we stay.
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#5 @ingridarn it is why we stay. Yes. The money is elsewhere. The staying is here.
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#6 Delta, and the US carriers are unionised in the same way (AFA for most, with Delta the exception, which is its own conversation) and the contract negotiation cycle is our whole culture. Reading the German version is reading a cousin.
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#7 Hamburg, applying, and the pay scale being public and predictable for ten years is the thing my parents wanted to hear and I did not know I could tell them. Looking it up tonight.
