Airbus Spain versus the Group and the global aerospace industry: pay, inflation protection, working hours and value sharing.
Every workforce in the group lost purchasing power over 2020-2025 — Germany (−11.7%) and the UK (−11.0%) even more than Spain (−8.4%) against each country's CPI. Spain's difference is not the percentage but the structure: it is the only site with no inflation clause, no permanent annual payments added, and more hours worked per year. The group profit-sharing bonus (Success Award) is common to every site, weighted by division.
Germany (IG Metall): revision clauses + ~€4,100 in one-offs + permanent annual payments (T-Geld / T-ZUG) + a 35-hour week. France (NAO): a revision clause that lifted the 2023 budget from 2.9% to 5.5% + statutory profit sharing. UK: annual review negotiated with Unite. Italy (CCNL): automatic inflation indexation (IPCA-NEI). Spain: unilateral 2% raises with CPI running higher — until the strike pushed the offer to 10% across the board (headline 12%, counting individual merit and promotions).
Two numbers appear throughout this document: −8.4% and −14.1%. They do not contradict each other — they measure against two different yardsticks.
−8.4% · against official CPI. The standard comparison: Spain's CPI rose 22.8% cumulatively over 2020-2025 while Airbus Spain's pay scale rose 12.5%. This is the metric that allows comparison with Germany, France and the UK, since each country publishes its own CPI.
−14.1% · against the real cost of living. The Dossier v10 metric: it weights 65% CPI + 35% the national House Price Index. That combined index rose 31.0% because housing became 45% more expensive over the period, more than double the general CPI. In net terms — after income tax and the employee's social contributions — the loss rises to −17% for the reference worker (Madrid, single, €50,000 base in 2020), whose personal effective rate climbed from 26.50% to 29.30% through fiscal drag and the new MEI pension levy.
In one sentence: official CPI understates what living actually costs someone paying a mortgage or rent. That is why this movement uses the real cost of living as its reference figure, and CPI only for cross-country comparison.
Turnout >90% · stoppages in Getafe, San Pablo and Tablada (Seville), Cádiz, Albacete and Illescas.
Only 10% is across the board (5% in 2026 + 5% in Apr 2027). The rest of the headline “12%” does not reach everyone: 1% individual merit (not for all) + 1% ring-fenced for promotions. Plus €2,000 and a CPI clause. Signed by CCOO, SIPA and ATP.
The pre-agreement goes to a ballot and the workforce votes it down · the company triggers SIMA mediation.
Called by CGT, UGT and UTIL. SIPA is not on the ballot and will put participation to a vote of its members; CCOO and ATP have not taken a position and are trusting the SIMA process.
This is the labour share: the part of every euro billed that goes to the entire global workforce (wages + social contributions + pensions). Its inverse is the revenue per employee vs. labour cost per employee comparison in the block below. A low ratio amid record profits means the value created flows elsewhere — at Airbus in 2025: €5,221m in profit and €2,372m distributed to shareholders.
Resulting sharing ratio: Germany ~23% · France ~20% · Spain ~16%. On paper the Spanish worker generates the same as their group peers, but costs 20-30% less: this is the workforce leaving the most margin per employee — and the only one in the group with no inflation clause.
Leonardo: net profit €1,220m (+14%) and 6,600 hires. Saab: sales +24%, +3,300 employees. BAE: sales +10%, £1,530m returned to shareholders.
Not the pay-scale percentage: Spain accumulated +12.5% over 2020-2025, ahead of Germany (+10.8%), the UK (+8.8% to 2023) and France (+7.0%), and its loss against CPI is smaller than Germany's or the UK's. The difference lies in everything around that percentage — the permanent annual payments Germany consolidated while freezing its scales, working hours, profit sharing beyond the group Success Award, the inflation clause, and being the only site where 2026-27 was set unilaterally. The table below sets out that comparison.
Reading the scorecard: Spain has the largest pay-scale increase and, together with France, the smallest loss against its own CPI — and at the same time it is the only site in the group with no structural compensating mechanism at all. It is the only one carrying five crosses: no inflation clause, no permanent payments, no tax exemption on one-offs, no job guarantee and the longest working year. And the only one where 2026-27 was set without negotiation.
Measured against the real cost of living (CPI + housing) instead of official CPI, Spain's loss moves from −8.4% to −14.1% gross and −17% net (reference worker, Madrid). * UK: cumulative to 2023; the source does not label 2024-2025, so the real figure is higher.
IG Metall revision clause · T-Geld (an extra month's pay each year, 27.6% of base pay, new since 2022) and T-ZUG B from 18.5% → 26.5% as permanent annual payments · ~€4,100 in one-offs (€3,000 tax-free) · 35-hour week · jobs guaranteed until 2030. Three years with no pay-scale increase (2020-2022) left it with the group's widest gap against CPI. T-Geld is worth ~+2.3% of permanent annual pay that never shows up in the salary table: together with T-ZUG B, guaranteed German pay grew ~14% over the period.
NAO revision clause: the 2023 budget was lifted from 2.9% to 5.5%, with a minimum across-the-board rise of €100/month · statutory intéressement + participation (thousands of €/year) on top of the group Success Award · pay scales up only +7.0% cumulatively (0 · 1.0 · 3.9 · 2.0 · 0 · 0): no across-the-board rise in 2024 or 2025, with the budget redirected towards individual merit pay.
Annual review negotiated with Unite the Union · no rise in 2020 or 2021, +5.1% in 2022 and +3.5% in 2023 (increases in 2024 and 2025, with no value published in the source) · UK inflation, the highest in the group, leaves a cumulative loss of −11.0% · 2026 still to be negotiated. The "no data" boxes are items we could not document from a public source and do not estimate.
No inflation clause in 2020-2025 · no permanent annual payments beyond the group-wide Success Award · €3,100 in one-offs (600 + 1,500 + 1,000) fully taxable, against Germany's €4,100 largely tax-free · 145 more hours worked per year than Germany (range 138-152 by site) · the only site where the 2026-27 rises were set unilaterally (2% / 1.5%) until the strike forced negotiation.
At equal nominal salary, every hour worked in Spain is worth ~9% less than in Germany and ~5% less than in France. The best-documented comparison is Spain-France, both with explicit contractual figures: 78 hours' difference a year, in black and white in the agreements.
Standard hours 1,685h · double shift 1,649h 33min · triple shift 1,622h 03min · fixed afternoon or night shift 1,597h 21min · saturation calendar 1,541h. All are explicit contractual figures from article 9.
Non-cadre staff without a forfait: 1,607h a year, including the solidarity day · non-cadres with a forfait and cadres on an hourly forfait: 1,700h · cadres on forfait jours: ~214 days a year, with no contractual measurement in hours.
35h/week and 30 days' leave for much of the workforce under the IG Metall agreement. The annual total varies by state and municipality depending on public holidays: ~1,547h in Hamburg, Bremen or Lower Saxony; ~1,540h with an additional regional holiday; ~1,533h at Bavarian sites. Counterexample: Airbus Logistik GmbH applies 37.5h a week, outside that agreement.
35h/week, 25 days' leave and 8 bank holidays (England and Wales, 2025), usually over 4.5 days with Friday afternoon off → ~1,596h. Counterexample: certain Airbus Defence and Space UK roles (Stevenage) work 37h/week, ~1,687h a year — practically the Spanish working year.
This is a wage index, not euros: the 2020 salary is set at 100 and the line shows how much it has risen since. A line at 148 means that salary is up 48% cumulatively since 2020.
Yellow — Boeing IAM 751: after the 53-day strike it reaches 148.0 by 2027 (+48.0%).
Red — Airbus Spain, unilateral raises: stuck at 116.5 (+16.5%).
Green — Airbus Spain under the Dossier v10 claim: the +20.9% is applied in two consolidated tranches — 15% in January 2026 (index 129.4) and 5.9% in January 2027, which coincides with the first CPI + 1.5% review under Mechanism C, reaching 141.4 (+41.4%).
The vertical gap between the yellow and red lines in 2027 (~31.5 points) is the distance to a Boeing worker. Even granting the full claim, Spain would still sit below Boeing — a company that piled up $35,127m in losses while Airbus earned €20,569m.
And the benchmark is not Boeing, it is the cost of living: the real cost of living projected to 2027 stands at 141.0. The claim (141.4) just reaches it; the unilateral offer (116.5) leaves the gap open by 24.5 points.
It exists in Germany (IG Metall revision), France (clause de révision, which lifted the 2023 budget from 2.9% to 5.5%) and Italy (automatic IPCA-NEI), and the UK reviews annually with Unite. Spain is the only site in the group that went through 2020-2025 without any such mechanism.
No site held its purchasing power over 2020-2025: Germany −11.7%, the UK −11.0%, Spain −8.4% and France −8.2% against each country's CPI. But Germany offset this with permanent annual payments, €4,100 tax-free and a 35-hour week; France, with statutory intéressement and participation on top of the group Success Award. Spain added none of those items: it receives only the Success Award common to every site, weighted by division.
Airbus closed 2025 with €5,221m in net profit, a record €619bn backlog and €2,372m distributed to shareholders. An Airbus worker generates €465k a year, the second-highest ratio in the global industry, and Spanish labour cost per employee (~€75k) is the lowest of the three large European sites. Dossier v10 prices the full claim at ~€764m in year one — 13.9% of Group profit, less than it pays out in dividends that same year — and at ~€235m/year recurring, 4.3% of annual profit. The one-off payment (~€545m) is worth 7.6% of the dividends distributed over 2020-2025.