Lufthansa: massive lay-off of 100 employees

It’s the last day of work for the French employees of the Lufthansa section at the airport.

Starting June 30th, ground assistance to the German company’s flights will not be undertaken by its own personnel anymore, but by a subcontracting firm: Paris Customers Assistance, a branch of the Groupe Europe Holding (GEH).

A strategy on which we had already mentioned the issues in a previous article from last december.

At that time, the company was hoping to redeploy 2/3 of its personnel to this exterior provider, arranging to cover the salary difference for eight years, which would amount to 18 million euros.

“But money isn’t everything” observes Franck Bonot, union delegate at Unsa.

“The work conditions are much less advantageous, especially in terms of the part-time organization, specifically for those living in the Paris region.”

According to the union, only 24 people out of the 100 positions to fill have accepted the offer and are now undergoing a trial period at GEH.

This number is contested by the company, that insures not having yet received the responses from its personnel.

“But it is true that most of them have refused this redeployment offer” says a spokesperson.

Lufthansa insures having followed all of the steps of the employment safeguarding plan that was approved by Direccte.

While the company’s representatives do not wish to confirm the numbers, the union estimates that more than one hundred people will be let go, including those from the sales department.

But before going to Pôle Emploi (the unemployment office - translator’s note), they will receive various benefits of the voluntary redundancy plan, including a period of 9 to 18 month during which they will be paid by Lufthansa to facilitate the job search.

“This is a legal obligation for any company of 1000 employees” explains Franck Bonot.

“Some of them will take the opportunity to start their own company, while others will go into the luxury hotel business” continues the union delegate.

The employees have planned on returning their uniforms on Monday June 30th in Roissy.

A symbolic gesture that will mark the end of a historical moment: the company had been carrying full in-house operations for over sixty year in Roissy.

Just like Air France, Lufthansa has engaged in a large restructuring plan called SCORE to reduce its expenses.

It is finalizing the transfer of all of its flights to Germany to its branch Germanwings expect for flights going to Munich and Frankfurt.

A strategy that seems to be working.

By reducing high restructuring costs as well as development expenses on new projets, its operation benefit has increased by 62,1% to an amount of 1,04 billion euros.

Allowing it to provide a share dividend of 0,45 euro to its stockholders.