Because of the second pilot strike within two weeks, almost every second Eurowings flight is canceled from Monday to Wednesday. Tens of thousands of passengers are likely to be affected. Of the around 400 connections planned for Monday, more than 230 could take place, said the Lufthansa low-cost subsidiary. For Tuesday and Wednesday, Eurowings assumes that almost half of the planned flight program will also be cancelled.
The fact that Eurowings assumes that it will be able to carry out more than half of the planned flights despite the strike is not least due to the fact that the machines of the Austrian subsidiary Eurowings Europe are not affected by the industrial dispute. She flies “under full load,” it said. The airline Eurowings Discover, which operates from Frankfurt and Munich, is not affected by the current strike call. In addition, the Lufthansa subsidiary uses aircraft from partner companies, which also otherwise carry out some of the flights. In addition, the airline expects that many pilots will show up for duty despite the strike.
Employers warn of millions in damage
On Friday, the union had called on the pilots to go on a three-day strike in the collective bargaining dispute over better working hours – from Monday midnight to 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday. The Cockpit Association had declared that the offer submitted by the employer was non-negotiable. The talks failed again. The union is demanding longer rest periods and shorter deployments because the cockpit staff is overworked.
The management had described the demands as excessive. Eurowings Managing Director Kai Duve criticized on Saturday that the union was inevitably forcing Eurowings to shrink German flight operations and jeopardize jobs – not just in the cockpit. The airline emphasized on Sunday that it had been made very clear in internal meetings over the weekend that the relief package offered, with ten additional days off per year and three hours less weekly working hours, reached the limit of what was economically reasonable. “Accordingly, with its unyielding attitude, VC will not strike out for an even better offer, but with its course will only contribute to renewed customer disappointment and further damage in the millions.”
The flight plans for Tuesday and Wednesday would be published as soon as it was clear how many pilots reported for flight duty despite the call for a strike, Eurowings explained. Passengers were asked to keep themselves informed about the status of their flight via the website or the Eurowings customer app. The Eurowings pilots had already stopped work for a day at the beginning of October. The airline had to cancel around 250 flights – around 30,000 passengers were affected.