Helvetic boss Ebner raises salaries of all employees

Swiss flight attendants can only dream of that. Employees of the Helvetic airline receive a pay increase. CEO Tobias Pogorevc (51) announced the good news from Helvetic owner Martin Ebner (77) at the company’s Christmas party Thursday night, Blick learned. In an internal communication accessible to the editors, Pogorevc writes to staff: “From January 1, 2023, we will increase the wages of all our employees! Depending on the wage level, the raise is between 3.5 and 5 percent of the previous salary.”

Specifically, Helvetic employees who previously earned less than 5100 francs per month will receive a 5 percent increase in salaries. Everyone else will benefit from a 3.5 percent increase. “With this step, we will compensate for inflation (3 percent) and also increase salaries in all wage classes,” Pogorevc writes. There is also a CHF 500 Christmas bonus for pilots, flight attendants and office workers.

An early thank you

The Swiss regional airline is therefore much more generous than its competitors. According to a recent UBS wage survey, workers in Switzerland will receive an average wage increase of 2.2 percent next year. The pay rise came as a surprise to flight attendants, especially at Ebner Airline. Over the past two years, they have repeatedly complained about their low wages and harsh working conditions.

Pogorevc acknowledges this in his internal letter. The CEO predicts delivery issues at suppliers and permanent hiring of employees will also be a challenge for Helvetic in 2023. “This is a little early thank you.”

“Worth to be appreciated”

We don’t just owe the Ebner couple pay raises and Christmas bonuses. “But at the same time, we are still at optimal cruising altitude, despite the huge financial turbulence and losses in recent years.”

So why is Martin Ebner now opening his wallet to his employees? When asked by Blick, the entrepreneur explains: “In the aviation industry, wage levels are often very low due to tight margins.” The situation for a Swiss airline is currently worsened by the intervention of airlines that recruit their staff in low-wage countries.

Who exactly Ebner refers to, he does not say. The head of the Swiss low-cost airline has recently been criticized for employing foreign workers in neighboring countries. And in the fall, Switzerland outsourced some of its flights to the Latvian airline Baltic, where flight attendants and pilots earned significantly less.

Thanks to the dedication of its employees, Helvetic has been able to achieve an exceptionally high capacity utilization. “We have to appreciate that now,” says Ebner. He is confident that capacities can be further increased and business results improved for the coming year.