By Vinciane Cabaret (BeCA / VC Representative) & Alain Vanalderweireldt (Vice-President EAT/DHL)

This article summarises the main developments that have happened in EAT / DHL since the last edition of our Cockpit Flash.

Industrial Issues

EAT has now 2 bases, one in BRU and another one in Leipzig, Germany (LEJ). In Germany, BeCA members are represented by VC.

As per German labor law, pilots and seamen are not obliged to have a CLA. Therefore, our LEJ based pilots do not have any CLA.

Fortunately, this is going to change in the near future. Two unions (ver.di and VC) are currently in the negotiation process to conclude the first CLA for all LEJ based pilots.

After a first meeting where the basis of the negotiation process was discussed, a second, constructive, meeting took place at the end of September. A third meeting is planned at the beginning of November.

Unlike in Belgium, where it is common practice to have different unions negotiate at the same table with management, in Germany, this is a bit different. There is usually only one union representing employees. Therefore, EAT’s situation, where 2 unions conduct parallel negotiations to obtain a common CLA, is fairly unusual.

The road ahead is still long. However, we are confident that, in the end, better working conditions will prevail.

Operational Issues

Conflict zones

This summer, all EAT pilots faced the difficult question “to fly or not to fly to crisis zones”, as EAT operates their B757 to Kiev (Ukraine) and their A300 to Tel Aviv and Afghanistan. A comparison between German and Belgian legislations on the “security fear factor” was carried out. DHL continued to fly to Kiev and Tel Aviv and, after a short hiatus, resumed their A300 Middle East operations to Afghanistan, with volunteer pilots.

Cockpit Air Contamination

EAT/DHL is addressing the problem of cockpit air contaminated by pyrolised oil mixed to engine hot bleed air.  They added new technology air filters from the Pall company. These filters however can only be a solution for cargo planes as they are limited to small air mass filtering, thus not usable to filter larger cabin air demand on passenger aircraft.