Hundreds of flight cancellations expected
Warning strike started at Lufthansa
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After the strike at the Lufthansa subsidiary Discover, the ground staff at the parent company are now following suit. This affects more than 100,000 passengers at major German airports.
The second warning strike by ground staff has begun at Lufthansa. The company expects hundreds of flight cancellations and more than 100,000 passengers affected. The company has already cancelled several connections at its most important hub in Frankfurt for Monday evening. Only a few intercontinental flights are still scheduled to take place.
On Monday evening, Lufthansa employees in technology, logistics, freight and IT went on warning strike, as Verdi strike leader Marvin Reschinsky confirmed. The ground staff at the Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart locations will follow on Tuesday at 4 a.m.
The airline plans to launch 10 to 20 percent of its planned program of around 1,000 flights on Tuesday. During the first wave of warning strikes almost two weeks ago, around 900 flights were cancelled and more than 100,000 passengers had to re-plan their flights. Lufthansa warned passengers of cancelled flights not to come to the airport because the rebooking desks were not manned, the information systems said.
Collective bargaining continues
The pilots' strike at the Lufthansa subsidiary Discover went much more smoothly, which only had to cancel a single Mallorca flight in Frankfurt am Main. According to a company spokesman, the Cockpit Association's first solidarity strike on long-haul Lufthansa flights was completely absorbed. All four takeoffs of the Lufthansa sub-fleet on strike with the Boeing 787 were possible without restrictions.
The background to the ground staff's warning strike is the group-wide collective wage negotiations for, according to Verdi, around 25,000 employees on the ground – including at Deutsche Lufthansa, Lufthansa Technik, Lufthansa Cargo, Lufthansa Technik Logistik Services, Lufthansa Engineering and Operational Services and other group companies. Lufthansa speaks of around 20,000 employees. Collective bargaining is scheduled to continue on Wednesday. Verdi described the second wave of warning strikes as necessary because Lufthansa had made no move to improve its existing offer in the previous negotiations.
