questions and answers
Strikes at Deutsche Bahn and Lufthansa: This is what travelers should know
If you want to travel by train or Lufthansa on Thursday, you should have strong nerves because of several strike calls
© Boris Roessler / DPA
Lufthansa employees are on strike for two days, and train drivers for the GDL railway union are on strike for 35 hours. Travelers of any means of transport should be prepared for significant restrictions.
A series of strikes threatens to significantly impact several modes of transport on Thursday. Travelers can find the most important information in this overview.
When will the railway strike start?
Until when will the train drivers be on strike?
The strike is scheduled to end on Friday at 1 p.m. But the disabilities continue throughout the day. The railway needs time to get trains and staff back to where they are needed. The rail service will not be fully operational again until Saturday. In freight transport, the strike was scheduled to begin on Wednesday at 6 p.m. and last until Friday at 5 a.m.
Is there an emergency timetable?
According to Deutsche Bahn, a basic range of long-distance, regional and S-Bahn services will be offered during the strike. Travelers should check in advance whether their connection is available.
Should there be further strikes at the railways?
The uncertainty on the rails does not end with this strike. The GDL is planning so-called wave strikes. Weselsky has announced that in the future there will be significantly less lead time between strike announcements and the start of strikes. The railway and its customers hardly have any time to prepare for the labor disputes. So far, the federally owned company has been able to put together at least a basic offer due to the usually two-day lead time. Weselsky also left it open whether he also wanted to strike on Easter travel.
What do air travelers have to prepare for?
With renewed warning strikes by several professional groups, the Verdi union is paralyzing important parts of German air traffic this Thursday. Passengers have to prepare for hundreds of flight cancellations and delays. In addition to the Lufthansa ground staff, the aviation security forces in Frankfurt and Hamburg have also been called on to stop work. As a result, no passengers will be able to board at both airports on Thursday, as the operators announced. The first flight cancellations were expected to occur on Wednesday evening because the technical departments of the ground staff were supposed to go on warning strike earlier.
When will Lufthansa employees start striking?
The warning strike by Lufthansa ground staff begins in the technical areas on Wednesday evening and is scheduled to continue until Saturday morning at 7:10 a.m. Passenger flights are particularly at risk on Thursday and Friday. “Passengers affected by flight cancellations as a result of the strike will be informed by email or via the Lufthansa app,” announced the Lufthansa spokeswoman. A corresponding special flight plan has already been published.
In addition, it is not possible to take a flight at the airports in Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg due to an all-day Verdi strike call by security staff on Thursday. The background to the strikes is collective bargaining disputes that revolve around higher wages but also better working conditions. There is no such strike call for the aviation security forces at Munich airport.
Who is on strike at Lufthansa?
The Verdi union has called on Lufthansa’s entire ground staff, numbering around 25,000 people, to go on a warning strike. It is already the fifth wave of warning strikes in the tariff dispute and the third with a direct impact on passengers.
Shortly before the important Easter business, another group of around 19,000 flight attendants at Lufthansa and its subsidiary Cityline prepared to strike. In a ballot that ended on Wednesday, more than 96 percent voted in favor of industrial action, as the cabin union UFO reported. However, the sector union has not yet announced a strike date. With a fair offer, a strike can still be avoided, said UFO boss Joachim Vázquez Bürger.
What does Verdi demand?
Verdi charges 12.5 percent more money for a term of twelve months, while the company has previously offered 10 percent for a term of 28 months. After four rounds of negotiations, an inflation compensation bonus of 3,000 euros is comparatively undisputed.
Aviation security collective bargaining concerns the working conditions of around 25,000 employees of private security service providers. So far, five rounds of negotiations in the collective bargaining dispute have failed to produce any results, and more than 1,100 flights were canceled during the first wave of warning strikes at eleven airports. Verdi is calling for an hourly wage increase of 2.80 euros over a period of twelve months, with overtime bonuses starting more quickly from the first hour of overtime. According to their own information, the employers from the Federal Association of Aviation Security Companies (BDLS) have offered 2.70 euros in three stages with a term of 24 months.
What is the situation at the airports in Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg?
The Frankfurt operator Fraport recommends that passengers contact their airlines and under no circumstances come to the airport. Originally, 1,170 take-offs and landings with around 160,000 passengers on board were planned for Thursday at Germany’s largest airport. Which connections are canceled is up to the respective airline, said an airport spokesman. Airport operations will be maintained so that transit passengers can continue to transfer. Arrivals will also be possible in Frankfurt.
The Munich Airport should remain open on Thursday and Friday despite strikes by ground staff, but expects many flight cancellations. “On both days of the strike, only 10 to 20 percent of the flight program will take place,” a Lufthansa spokeswoman said on Wednesday. Accordingly, around 1,000 flights were originally planned in Munich for the entire period of the Verdi union’s warning strike in the collective bargaining dispute with Lufthansa. According to a spokesman for the airport, around 500 of the 800 flights planned for the day will be canceled on Thursday alone. A similar rate is expected for Friday.
The Hamburg Airport had already canceled all 141 departures for Thursday on Tuesday evening due to the lack of security checks. The press office at Helmut Schmidt Airport said some of the planes would take off without passengers. This is necessary to avoid further disruptions to air traffic. The airport is expecting a lot of rebookings for Friday, so busy flights can be expected. However, due to the parallel train drivers’ strike, there is no longer any possibility of switching to the train, at least on short journeys.