The job cuts at the Tuifly holiday airline are stalling. Because its own fleet is to shrink from the original 39 to 22 machines, the company wants to cut 900 of its 2,400 jobs by the end of the year. After defeats in several labor courts, this schedule can no longer be kept: Most recently, pilots were successful with dismissal protection suits – a total of around a hundred proceedings are said to be pending.
“Tuifly has crashed several times before the labor courts,” said the lawyer Simone Schäfer from the Cologne law firm HMS Barthelmeß Görzel, which represents a number of pilots.
Tuifly on a shrinking course
Tui has prescribed a downsizing course for its German charter company in order to reduce costs. In the future, Tuifly will only take off with around half of the planes so that the planes are not only used to capacity during the travel-intensive summer months, but also in winter. The company primarily wants to transport TUI customers who have booked their vacation in the group’s own holiday complexes. Tuifly therefore only wants to employ 370 pilots and 830 employees in the cabin, while 300 jobs are to be retained in administration and technology.
It is unclear whether Tuifly will appeal
In addition to tariff zero rounds, more flexible working hours and a reduction in the company pension scheme, the employee representatives also approved the job cuts at the beginning of March, to prevent the initially planned reduction of the fleet to 17 machines. Tuifly then launched several volunteer programs – those who left the company could count on a monthly salary per year of employment as severance pay. Two thirds of the planned job cuts have already been carried out on a voluntary basis, the company said in May. A company spokesman did not want to say whether Tuifly exhausted the courts with the dismissals: “We do not comment on this.”
The tenor of the judgments before several labor courts was the same, reported the pilots’ staff representatives. Because the dismissals of the pilots were not legal according to the assessment of the lower authorities, Tuifly must continue to employ them until the legal conclusion of the proceedings. The company’s plan was to get rid of the redundant pilots by the end of this year. At the beginning of September ten pilots were successful with their dismissal protection suits at the Hanover Labor Court; Judgments have also been made against the airline in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Cologne.
The cabin crew is now also feeling hopeful
In July, a flight captain was successful in Düsseldorf. Tuifly had initially informed him that he was ranked 178 in the social selection list out of 185 pilots who were not dismissed. When colleagues subsequently made use of special protection against dismissal due to parental and care leave, the company declared that he had fallen by 20 places to position 198 and was now being dismissed. The labor court was not convinced: Tuifly could not show that there were no more employment opportunities for the pilot. It is still clear how the company wants to meet its employment needs, while the 20 colleagues are not on board because of their time off. (Ref .: 10 Ca 1765/21)
The decisions in favor of the pilots also give hope to the employees of the cabin crew, who are defending themselves against cancellations in court. Tuifly wants to close the stations at Hamburg, Münster-Osnabrück, Berlin, Bremen, Cologne and Nuremberg airports – anyone who refuses to move to other airports should leave the company. Almost half of the 180 or so people concerned filed a lawsuit against this, the staff representatives said: “There have been no judgments yet, but the trend among pilots is pointing in the right direction.”
From Jens Heitmann
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