Lufthansa Technik remains with the closure of six line maintenance stations

Lufthansa Technik is also preparing to close six line maintenance locations in Germany. The co-determination committees have been informed that the stations in Bremen, Düsseldorf, Leipzig, Hanover and the Line Maintenance sub-operations in Hamburg and the north of Frankfurt are no longer seen, the subsidiary said when asked by airliners.de.

“In our opinion, we will no longer operate these in future.” However, the negotiating group will now initially be included in the design of the planning.

Already in February it leaked that the economic situation in Bremen, Düsseldorf, Hanover and Leipzig was critical. Closures in Hamburg and Frankfurt could only be avoided through “massive cost reductions”. But they don’t seem to be enough anymore.

Since far too many employees are currently on board for the forecast demand for everyday maintenance services even in the years after the pandemic with 1,400 employees, from the perspective of the management a massive downsizing is inevitable, it said in February. The expected overhang is 500 positions, which is why redundancies cannot be ruled out.

The Verdi union has once again clearly criticized the plans and spoke of 780 jobs that are directly threatened.

Munich and Frankfurt were reassigned within the group

“While the Lufthansa Group is receiving billions in government support during the pandemic in order to save the company and secure jobs, the subsidiary is now expected to close and cut jobs on a large scale,” said Frank Hartstein, who is responsible for Verdi
Lufthansa Technik. “Wrong business decisions must not ruin efforts and endanger jobs.”

Immediately before the corona crisis, Lufthansa spun off line maintenance for the main airline at the Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg locations from Lufthansa-Technik AG. As a result, Line Maintenance has lost more than half of its business, especially the economically most important order for Lufthansa in Frankfurt and Munich, while fixed costs and orders with lower volumes remained with Lufthansa-Technik, according to Verdi.

The union pointed out that further decisions by the group would jeopardize the existence of line maintenance at Lufthansa Technik. In the middle of the crisis, Lufthansa decided that line maintenance work at Eurowings’ main location in Düsseldorf should no longer be carried out by Lufthansa Technik, but that Eurowings should outsource it to an external competitor.

At the same time Lufthansa announced that it would compete with Lufthansa Technik with its “new own” line maintenance and in future it would take over the line maintenance contract from the new airline Eurowings Discover itself.

Hartstein called on the Lufthansa Group to correct the decision: “Cash out to external competitors is the wrong way and endangers the joint efforts to overcome the crisis in an irresponsible way.”

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