During Monday’s tripartite meeting between the government, Luxair leadership and unions, it was agreed that the national airline company requires urgent modernisation.
Several decisions were taken during the negotiations: partial unemployment will be abandoned, the redundancy programme left to expire, and wages no longer be frozen as of next year. 44 eligible employees can continue benefiting from early retirement. The talks took place against the backdrop of demonstrations in the capital.
While “baseless rumours” of Feith’s imminent departure circulated last week, he’s been given the task to “clean up” the company. Feith underlined that he does his work with “lots of love of motivation”, and that he does not understand the rumours reported in the media.
Nevertheless, the airline is struggling with the current state of affairs.
Aviation is a liberal sector, Feith explained. Keeping Luxair afloat with state support or taxpayer money would not work; the business, and its investments, must run independently.
Regarding criticism of poor working conditions at the airline, Feith argued they must be placed in context. “Management” and “lots of motivated people” had the energy and drive to get the airline back in the air post-pandemic. Despite significant competition from other sectors, the airline still has attractive working offers.
It is true that many employees left the airline, but simultaneously many new talents are being hired, the CEO said. He did however concede that summers were characterised by a heavy workload and that the absence rate was high. However, “fatigue” were dominant across the aviation sector, according to Feith.
Feith was furthermore very positive about having former public prosecutor Robert Biever as mediator in the tripartite meeting. But Feith said he cannot take the blame for not getting along with personnel on a human level: “You can’t do everything alone”. The company of 3,000 people has a management team of 4-5 people on his side, it requires a team effort.
“We have big challenges that must be addressed now”, Feith said. “Luxair should have invested in new aircraft and infrastructure prior to the pandemic. Now the pandemic is over, we’ve lost a lot of investment capacity, and now the energy crisis is really difficult. But we have not passed on the extra costs to customers.”
“We need to find ways to continue flying economically, but flying will not become cheaper.”
