Finnair Reaches Agreement with Cabin Crew

(15/03/23)  Finnair has reached an agreement with the airline's cabin crew, concluding the change negotiations it started in November and discontinuing the subcontracting plan for inflight services on routes to/from Thailand and North America.

The savings agreement is valid until the end of 2025.

Finnair had earlier agreed on savings with pilots, senior white-collar employees and engineers, as well as cabin crew based in Japan and Korea, and made local agreements that increase efficiency in Finnair Technical Services and different ground operation units. Those savings agreements covered 87% of Finnair’s personnel.

Finnair A350-900 reg: OH-LWB. Picture by Steven Howard of TravelNewsAsia.com

“We are pleased that we have been able to find solutions together with our employees,” said Johanna Karppi, Senior Vice President, People and Culture at Finnair. “The double crisis caused by the COVID19 pandemic and the closure of Russian airspace has had a major impact on Finnair's finances. The agreements with our employees support our important goal of restoring profitability. We are grateful that our employees have been willing to contribute to solving our profitability challenge to safeguard the future of Finnair and jobs at Finnair.”

The cabin crew's agreement includes, among other things, elements to increase the efficiency of cabin crew usage, changes to long-day compensation and, for example, changes to the crew layover hotel rules.

With the agreement, cabin crew is included in Finnair's staff incentive plan 2023-2025, along with all other employee groups who have made savings agreements.

The staff incentive plan will produce a payout in the first quarter of 2026 if Finnair achieves the EBIT margin target set in the plan.

About 1,750 employees work as Finnair cabin crew in Finland.

In connection with the savings agreement, it was also agreed that the collective agreement applicable to Finnair's cabin crew in Finland will be extended by one year, until 31 January 2025.

In addition, a negotiation result was achieved on salary settlement for 2023 and 2024, which follows the general line of the technology industry. The salary settlement is subject to administrative approval.

Headlines: