Lufthansa’s pilot union said negotiations over pay, pensions and promotion have failed, adding to concern about the carrier’s debt and liabilities after S&P Global Ratings cited pension costs as a prime reason for putting it on watch for possible credit downgrade. Talks that began early this year on contracts and career paths for flight crew at the main Lufthansa passenger brand, Lufthansa Cargo and Germanwings ended without a deal, the Vereinigung Cockpit union said Friday. S&P has meanwhile revised its outlook on Lufthansa’s credit rating to negative from stable, it said after markets closed Thursday, describing a jump in the pension deficit to E10.8b (US$13b) as of June 30 from E6.6b Dec 31 as a “material credit weakness.” It urged the group to seek a pilot deal like one with cabin crew that cut liabilities by E800m. <br/>
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South African Airways said tougher competition, rising finance costs and a weakening of the rand led to the carrier’s biggest loss in more than a decade. The loss of ZAR4.7b (US$331m) in the year through March 2015 was also exacerbated by the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa, which hurt traffic between South Africa and destinations in the Americas, India and Asia, SAA said Thursday. Finance costs rose 86% to ZAR490m due to increasing dependency on state guarantees to stay solvent, the airline said. “The increase in finance costs is directly attributable to the increased reliance on shareholder-guaranteed funding,” SAA said. “It is anticipated this will continue to increase until the airline achieves a turnaround in its operating result.” <br/>
Air India plans to reverse poach senior pilots and commanders, who had switched to other Indian and foreign airlines earlier and on whom the carrier had spent a lot of money to train them. As part of the strategy to hire over 500 pilots, the public sector carrier would also focus on hiring those who had left it in the past for various reasons and moved to other carriers, sources said. The move, which has the "consent" of Air India chairman and MD Ashwani Lohani, is aimed at saving both money and time as these already trained pilots can be deployed for operations immediately, they said. Air India has already offered jobs to 13 pilots it had sacked for participating in a 2-month strike in 2012, sources said. As many as 173 Air India pilots have resigned from the carrier since 2012 till last year. <br/>