Lufthansa

07/29/2008

'Maintenance Is Lufthansa's Achilles Heel'

Strike Takes Hold at German Airline

This week's strike against Germany's national airline was almost invisible when it began Monday. But a day-and-a-half into the dispute, Lufthansa is beginning to feel the effects. Though passengers will be only marginally affected on Tuesday, the financial costs to the airline could be high.

REUTERS

A Boeing 747-400 at a hanger at the Frankfurt Airport: "When it comes to maintenance, we have little maneuvering room."

On day two of a nationwide strike against Lufthansa, the German national airline said it could be forced to cancel up to 70 short-haul flights on domestic and European routes. That's about three percent of the airline's nearly 1,800 daily take-offs and landings, and passengers will experience at most minor delays and a reduced choice of in-flight meals. Lufthansa has chosen to cancel flights only on routes where the airline itself can offer alternatives. On its busiest Hamburg-Munich route, for example, just two return flights have been affected out of 15 scheduled.

Out of a Lufthansa fleet of roughly 500, Germany's largest airline has so far grounded just nine aircraft -- six in Frankfurt and three in Munich -- because of a lack of maintenance. Still, the strike showed signs of expanding on Tuesday, with workers protesting in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart and Nuremberg.

Workers represented by Germany's Ver.di service union are striking for a pay rise of nearly 10 percent, but German labor market analysts say the strike is more about influence than money. Ver.di has been losing members in the airline industry to other unions. In Germany, most pilots are now represented by Cockpit union and cabin attendants by Ufo.

'If a Lightbulb Flickers, a Plane Can't Take Off'

Ver.di, which represents some 50,000 Lufthansa employees -- including 10 percent of its cabin crew and up to 50 percent of the airline's technical staff -- says "aircraft maintenance is Lufthansa's Achilles heel." Maintenance is where Ver.di has the strongest representation among Lufthansa staff, and it has made that area the focal point of its strike.

"It's just a slight exaggeration, but if one lightbulb starts to flicker on board, a plane cannot take off," said Ver.di flight safety specialist Heidi Riedel-Ciesla. It's also the area where Ver.di has the strongest representation among Lufthansa staff.

Lufthansa officials acknowledged maintenance is a weak point for the airline -- at least in terms of finding backup to alleviate the parts of the company worst-hit by the strike.

'Little Maneuvering Room'

"When it comes to maintenance, we have little maneuvering room," said Lufthansa spokesman Wolfgang Weber. The airline makes no compromises when it comes to safety, he said. "Any backlog in the area of aircraft maintenance means that aircraft remain grounded until they have been maintained and checked over."

In some ground services -- such as in-flight catering and passenger check-in -- the airline has been able to replace some of its striking members or buy in the services of rival companies. But that doesn't apply in the crucial area of aircraft maintenance. Apart from servicing its own aircraft, Lufthansa also provides maintenance services to some 600 carriers around the world, including other major international airlines.

"If the strike continues, some of our clients' customers could also be affected," Weber said.

Ver.di's tough line is a bid to assert its influence and regain members, said Hagen Lesch of the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW), a German economic think tank. He said the slow build-up of the strike that initially appears to shield travellers is likely the result of the union's need to retain public sympathy.

Ver.di spokesman Harald Reutter sought to reinforce that image on Tuesday, telling SPIEGEL ONLINE: "We have achieved exactly what we wanted. We are striking in a way that is friendly to passengers, while at the same time applying economic pressure to Lufthansa."

But if the strike continues to grow, it could quickly become costly for the airline. Lesch estimates that a strike extension could force the airline to cancel up to 25 percent of its flights, incurring losses for Lufthansa of "up to €30 million ($47 million) per day." He said it was in the company's interest to resume negotiations with Ver.di as quickly as possible, "because a huge company like Lufthansa cannot afford losses on that scale."

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