Lufthansa is starting another subsidiary, with the sole purpose of finding a loophole to pay employees less…
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Lufthansa City Airlines launches in summer 2024
Lufthansa City Airlines will begin operations in the summer of 2024, and is Lufthansa’s newest subsidiary. The airline will initially operate Airbus A319s out of Frankfurt (FRA) and Munich (MUC), serving feeder routes for Lufthansa, alongside Lufthansa mainline jets, as well as Lufthansa CityLine jets. In the future, the airline may fly Airbus A220s or Embraer E-Jets, but no final decisions have been made.
From a passenger experience standpoint, this will be identical to flying with Lufthansa in terms of the cabin, food, drinks, etc. The only difference is that the plane will have a slightly modified livery, and you’ll be served by crews who specifically work for this subsidiary. For the purposes of earning miles and elite recognition, this will be the same as a mainline Lufthansa flight.
City Airlines already received its Air Operator Certificate (AOC) from the German Federal Aviation Authority back in June 2023. The airline will start recruiting both pilots and flight attendants as of November 2023.
Jens Fehlinger, Managing Director of City Airlines, explains how the intent with this subsidiary is to create “sustainable” (in other words, lowering paying jobs) in Germany:
“With City Airlines, we want to create prospects for the coming decades and secure sustainable jobs in Germany. This is the only way for us to grow and sustainably strengthen the hubs in Munich and Frankfurt.”
Why does Lufthansa need another subsidiary?!
It’s almost comical just how many subsidiaries Lufthansa has. Before City, we had Eurowings, Discover Airlines, CityLine, and I’m sure I’m missing some. And that doesn’t even consider all the subsidiaries in the past, plus all the other Lufthansa Group partner subsidiaries.
So, why does Lufthansa need yet another subsidiary? Well, currently there’s the Lufthansa CityLine subsidiary, which operates Canadair and Embraer regional jets. The catch is that Lufthansa has a scope clause with its mainline pilots regarding this subsidiary, and they’re limited to only flying planes up to a certain size.
So while Lufthansa can’t have CityLine operate larger aircraft, the company can apparently start a brand new subsidiary, and have those planes be bigger, as that airline isn’t governed by Lufthansa’s current bargaining agreement with pilots. So expect crews at Lufthansa City Airlines to get comparable pay to Lufthansa CityLine, only on bigger jets…
It’s just kind of amazing how bad faith the negotiations are with these contracts and subsidiaries, eh?
Bottom line
Lufthansa is launching another subsidiary in the summer of 2024, named City Airlines. The airline will operate Airbus A319s out of Frankfurt and Munich, with feeder services similar to those currently operated by Lufthansa CityLine, as well as Lufthansa mainline jets.
The intent is to be able to hire employees with a cheaper labor contract, without violating the agreement with Lufthansa’s mainline pilots…
What do you make of Lufthansa City Airlines?
Lufthansa Shitty Airlines
Lufthansa in no longer a Lufthansa. Sad, but true. Cost-cutting is everywhere. LH Group is a group of very expensive low -cost Airlines. At least we have got AEGEAN and LOT…
This reminds me of Delta "Song", USAir "Metrojet", or United "Ted". Attempts to develop a low cost subgroup within the main organization which eventually fail.
Would have been better off (and cheaper) to buy AirBaltic and have them develop a focus city operation at Munich & Frankfurt. AirBaltic Bavaria anyone?
We’re going to keep getting LH subsidiaries being created each time the pilots renegotiate - first up, City will be subject to the same scope clauses as CityLine, which restricts growth opportunities at FRA and MUC. The long term answer is to renegotiate; this is just short term thinking. We’ll see another subsidiary soon when City is subject to the same clauses as CityLine.
The main issue is the scope clause gets more restrictive in a few years time, 2026 I think, forbidding CityLine to operate planes with more than 76 seats which I believe would ground their entire fleet.
Thus it appears CityLine will cease to exist and City Airlines will take over.
Lufthansa CityLine currently operates A319s and A320neo, however this is under an exemption of the current scope agreement that will end in 2027.
The pilot union has already advised that they will not accept another scope clause, therefore LH is starting this subsidiary.
Cityline already operates A319s... but there must be a limit on the number they can operate. I believe they have 11 right now...
I'll be on a Cityline 319 next May, LH 1617 WAW-MUC.
When Ben Smith took over as CEO OF AF KL he realised this isn’t good and closed down Joon. Consequently you have AF mainline and AF Hop! KLM and KLM city hopper. Customers are totally confused by multiple partners especially when something goes wrong
I wonder if this ridiculousness will start happening in the American/North American market with all of the "labor" issue here. It's simply unsustainable to have all employees get 40-60% raises for the same or even LESS work. Inflation is about 15-18% total, and airfares have risen accordingly, but their COSTS have risen even more dramatically. Scary times to be in business.
Every raise they demand consequently put themselves at a higher furlough risk. And soon to be obsolete and replaced by automation.
But people are still carrying credit card balances with 35% interest.
Only thinking about the next paycheck but never the one after that.
>>Inflation is about 15-18% total
Oh my. Even as “alternative facts” go, this is simply ludicrous.
It's simply unsustainable to have all employees get 40-60% raises for the same or even LESS work.
Then here's an idea:
Stop gratuitously giving such raises to management, for doing the same (and let's be real: usually less) work, while simultaneously asking labor to take haircuts for "saving the company," every time there's a market hiccup...
...then labor won't have any justification for (rightfully) demanding such raises in their own right. It's really not...
It's simply unsustainable to have all employees get 40-60% raises for the same or even LESS work.
Then here's an idea:
Stop gratuitously giving such raises to management, for doing the same (and let's be real: usually less) work, while simultaneously asking labor to take haircuts for "saving the company," every time there's a market hiccup...
...then labor won't have any justification for (rightfully) demanding such raises in their own right. It's really not that hard of a concept.
I don't think this is in bad faith at all. Unfortunately, over the past 100 years workers in Europe have gone from not being protected enough to being overprotected, rendering labour too complex and insufficiently reactive to market realities. It is exceptionally difficult to fire someone in the EU and salary reductions are practically unheard of. In industries with very strong unions, such as civil aviation, companies have no other recourse to stay afloat other...
I don't think this is in bad faith at all. Unfortunately, over the past 100 years workers in Europe have gone from not being protected enough to being overprotected, rendering labour too complex and insufficiently reactive to market realities. It is exceptionally difficult to fire someone in the EU and salary reductions are practically unheard of. In industries with very strong unions, such as civil aviation, companies have no other recourse to stay afloat other than acrobatics such as this. Otherwise you end up like SAS with a bloated back office and employees paid royal sums to do very little useful work.
Hey vlad, you might be correct in general but non of your points apply here. It is not intended to fire lazy or bad staff or to reduce the overhead in management.
Just cheaper pilots... Which is fair if we were to assume that mainline senior pilots are overpaid. If that is the case it would be reasonable to negotiate a contract for all employees to receive equal pay. But that would mean that...
Hey vlad, you might be correct in general but non of your points apply here. It is not intended to fire lazy or bad staff or to reduce the overhead in management.
Just cheaper pilots... Which is fair if we were to assume that mainline senior pilots are overpaid. If that is the case it would be reasonable to negotiate a contract for all employees to receive equal pay. But that would mean that senior pilots would accept cuts so that younger pilots would earn sufficient money. That is of course impossible to imagine in a money driven world.
@Jo: Aren't pilots in a much better negotiating position than cabin crew? Somehow I always think of these subsidiaries as screwing over cabin crew first and foremost, because they tend to be a lot less mobile (and in-demand) than cockpit staff.
Right, because Lufthansa which is currently charging 400+€ for European economy return trips has hard time "staying afloat" if they spend 10 more euros per flight hour on their crew.
Fully agree! Unfortunatelly these measures are a must -have if german companies want to stay competitive in long term.
Let's not forget that LH used CityLine to try to get around crew costs by operating A340-300s from ~2015-2020.
The way things are heading, LH mainline will solely fly widebody/long-haul with their myriad of subsidiaries doing the narrowbody work. Eventually...