Status: 17.10.2022 1:08 p.m
In the pilots’ strike at Eurowings, the fronts have hardened. The airline’s chief financial officer said it had reached the limit of what was economically feasible. A three-day strike had begun at midnight.
In the pilots’ strike at Eurowings, the company refuses to submit a better offer. The airline’s chief financial officer, Kai Duve, said his firm had reached the limits of what was commercially feasible following the latest bid.
He called on the Cockpit pilots’ union to return to the negotiating table on this basis. “We have to speak now, until then there will be no new offer.” The strike costs the company tens of millions every day. That jeopardizes jobs.
About half of the flights are cancelled
At midnight, a three-day strike by the pilots’ union began. Eurowings assumed that only 230 of 400 flights can take place today.
More than 50 connections were canceled at Düsseldorf Airport alone, and dozens of flights were also canceled at Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Berlin airports. All airports asked passengers to check the status of their flight on the Eurowings website or at the respective airport before departure.
Eurowings had tried to offer a good half of the connections anyway – it was not yet clear in the morning whether the goal could be maintained. According to the airline, it is also planned for Tuesday and Wednesday that more than half of the flights will take place despite the strike. It is expected that, despite the call, numerous pilots “will appear on duty and want to bring as many passengers as possible to their destinations,” it said at the weekend.
Union wants longer rest periods
The union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) demands above all a limitation of the maximum flight duty times and an extension of the rest periods of the pilots. Among other things, it is about 14 additional days off that Cockpit demands. Eurowings is ready for ten additional days. Flights operated by Eurowings Europe and the airline Eurowings Discover are not affected by the strike.
Eurowings accuses the union of endangering jobs and “willfully the future of Eurowings Germany”. VC, in turn, considers the offer made by the airline for a collective bargaining agreement to be “insufficient”. The company’s practice of “regularly scheduling employees up to the legal limits” leads to great stress.
A day-long strike had already begun on October 6 – around half of the 500 planned flights had been canceled and up to 30,000 passengers were affected.