Lufthansa eases benefits stance in new bid for pilot pay talks

Lufthansa offered to decouple pay talks with pilots from its demand for benefit concessions in a bid to restart contract talks following the sixth day of strikes in a week. Lufthansa is willing to increase pilots' wages 4.4% for 2016 through 2018 and grant a bonus retroactive to 2012, Harry Hohmeister, head of the company's network airlines, told cockpit crews Wednesday at a protest rally at Frankfurt airport. The airline will seek arbitration on those terms without tying them to previously sought changes in pensions and other perks. The union has demanded a 20% pay boost for the period from 2012, when the last contract expired, through 2017. Pilots gathered at the airport, Lufthansa's main hub, to mark the last day of a series of walkouts that has prompted 4,500 flight cancellations, sparked hostility from other employees and jeopardized the carrier's earnings targets. The works council representing ground crews, who reached a pay and pensions accord with Lufthansa a year ago, held a counter-demonstration nearby to demand that the pilots agree to arbitration. "This is not about pilot-bashing, but our people are angry, and rightfully so," said Ruediger Fell, a ground-crew works council leader in Frankfurt. "The raise demanded by our pilots is what our workers earn in a month, and the company will try to make up for that spending elsewhere." <br/>