Agreed.....

But was it 14 or 15 or 16 strikes over the past couple of years and always about their own T&Cs....Never about the poorer T&Cs in other Lufthansa Group Companies such as Aerologic, Tyrolean, Eurowings, etc.

And let's be honest, AB fell off the cliff months or even years ago - it isn't stood on the edge and, as always, hardly anything to do with or fault of the crews.

This gives me no great pleasure, but....

https://centreforaviation.com/insigh...16-loss-279882

Perhaps RAT5's post is closest. I remember thinking along the same lines several years ago. Their business model was basically a shambles from around the time they went for the PMI hub and their acquisition of LTU. I remember, at the time, flying DUS-MAD-DUS in their European Business Class for €280.00, and thinking it won't last.

The actual number of strikes was much less, because the tactics was "needle stitches".
Example:
Monday short haul, Tuesday long haul.
Some months later 6-12h clock long haul, the rest of the day short haul...
So the media (or public relations) just counted every fleet as another event.

And one can only strike for ones -own- collective agreement. It's illegal to strike for anything else.
That's the problem. Employer tries to outplay the different pilot groups against each other.
But Eurowings could strike as well, they have their own CA. Not Eurowings Europe though, their AOC is not even in Germany.

Btw. Aerologic is not a Lufthansa group airline whatsoever. They are just a joint venture with DHL and their pilots do not have a collective agreement / union representation. Their wages are freely negotiated. Neither can they switch companies within the group.

Actually, sympathy strikes are legal if certain guidelines are followed.

Except this was not a strike but individual people calling in sick.( or more correctly unfit to fly)
Big difference from a legal point of view.
I also understand that VC Cockpit is not supporting the action. So AB cannot even call it a collective action so I do not see AB going to court over this.

No, they won't. Because they know, even if there was a somewhat organized thing, that it wasn't the reasons for the cancellations. The sick rate for captains was 8% higher than the average, for FOs around 5%. That is well within the normal day to day variations. And the company did cancel flights where the crew was already on board and preparing to fly, for no apparent reason.

Already six months ago they knew that they won't have enough pilots for the september schedule, and that got worse three months ago when they decided to go from 60 to 75 minutes check in time and from 30 to 45 check out time starting 1st of september, which increased the crew demand considerably.

Apparently a huge operational problem was covered up by having a convenient scape goat.

Thanks for that inside info Denti. Sounds exactly to what the Spanish old ANSP (AENA) did with the controllers in Madrid some years ago. Diversion to hide a bigger problem and using the media to focus on easy "overpaid" targets . Sadly it worked .

It seems like that Niki Lauda is interested in Air Berlin

Former F1 champion Niki Lauda eyes parts of Air Berlin, Transport - THE BUSINESS TIMES

Busted flush
 

Lauda, along with other vultures, is looking to pick up "profitable" carrion.

None of those fools know what they are doing, just airline failures on their cv's.

CONDOR seems to be part of it as well :

http://www.avitrader.com/2017/09/14/...of-air-berlin/

Interesting post on the German PPRUNE - an insider claims that it is all a stitch-up and Lufthansa group has bought 10 of airberlin's A330-200 from AerCap in order to stall the interest from other investors in taking over airberlin inclusive of the long-haul ops. Another source alleges that IAG had been looking into that part of airberlin with the aim to expand Level. Depending on how the sale of airberlin itself works out, it is said that Lufthansa is planning to get Eurowings long-haul started at DUS with the help of Brussels Airlines (while until now Eurowings longhaul is exclusively operated by SunExpress)

The bids are in:
Mehrere Bieter für insolvente Air Berlin | Reuters

LH Group is offering a low 3 digit million € figure to get 70-90 aircraft, probably as a stand alone unit of A320 aircraft and crew to serve EW. Condor and Lauda are bidding for A320s, as is Easyjet. It doesn't look like anyone bid for the longhaul business, probably because of high LTU flight crew contracts. LH it seems made deals behind the scenes with Gecas and/or Aercap to take the A332 for EW longhaul.
Zeitfracht wants the LGW, Leisure Cargo and the MRO operation.
Utz Claasen, Wöhrl and Jonatan Pang each want to take over the airline completely... :D

There is no LTU flight crew deal. There is still one for the cabin crew though. The current flight crew deal is the air berlin one, which applies to all pilots, no matter from which company they originally came. There was a special deal for some high seniority FOs, however that is gone by now as well as they have been trained to be captains.

Anyway, longhaul is by now pretty much evenly operated by ex LTU and AB crews, and all of them are rated on both the A320 and A330.

An interesting aspect of Denti's point that AirBerlin has been undercrewed is that up to now there has been a significant monetary incentive for people to work on days off. But if you are not sure that you will ever see the money then why bother?

Stupid Pilots
 

Pilots calling sick just accelerates the end. Staff at Air Berlin are not happy with pilots ruining chances of successful takeover

IAG
 

It looks like IAG are interested in parts of Air Berlin as well:

AviTrader ? Lufthansa and IAG emerge as main contenders in bidding war for Air Berlin

The airberlin bankruptcy reached a new level of complexity and uncertainty, after a creditor filed an application to declare Austrian subsidiary NIKI bankrupt as well. The legal action, if successful, would likely torpedo previous rescue efforts and lead to the collapse of most, if not all, proposed transactions by potential investors to pick up parts of the airline. Once declared bankrupt, NIKI would lose its operating license and its airport slots, the basis on which bids have been made. ...

was Niki making money - they seemed an OK airline

What sort of bankruptcy?
 

Normal Bankruptcy or Alitalia style Euro Bankruptcy?