Warning strike at seven airports: Ver.di paralyzes air traffic

Around 300,000 passengers will have to do without their flights today. The reason is a warning strike at seven airports, to which the trade union ver.di and the civil servants’ association have called. Criticism hailed from the economy.

The trade union ver.di has paralyzed large parts of German air traffic. The planned all-day warning strike at Hanover Airport began last night. It is the only one of the seven airports on strike that does not have a ban on night flights. Operations in Hanover are very limited, said a ver.di spokesman for the dpa news agency late Thursday evening.

Also in Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Stuttgart, Bremen, Hamburg and Dortmund, if possible, no more planes should take off or land. According to estimates by the airport association ADV, almost 300,000 passengers are affected by a good 2,340 flight cancellations. The association spoke of an “unprecedented escalation”.

Lufthansa alone had to cancel around 1,300 connections. It was only on Wednesday that an IT breakdown caused by an excavator led to many flight cancellations.

Ver.di and the Association of Civil Servants are demanding 10.5 percent more

With the walkout, not only at the airports, the employees want to emphasize their demands in the collective bargaining dispute between the federal and local governments. In addition to the public service, there are also local negotiations for ground handling services and a nationwide round of collective bargaining for aviation security. Joint rallies are planned.

Ver.di and the civil servants’ association DBB are demanding 10.5 percent more income, but at least 500 euros more for the approximately 2.5 million federal and local employees in the public service wage dispute. The term should be twelve months. The employers have rejected the demands, but have not yet submitted their own offer. The second round of negotiations is scheduled for February 22nd and 23rd in Potsdam.

ver.di had already called for a warning strike at Berlin Airport at the end of January.

Sharp criticism from the economy

Sharp criticism of the union’s actions comes from medium-sized companies. “It is unacceptable that ver.di lives out its tariff demands at the expense of the entire German economy,” said Markus Jerger, head of the Federal Association of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses.

The federal chairman of the CDU-Mittelstandsgesellschaft MIT, Gitta Connemann, told the “Bild” newspaper: “A union must not take an entire country hostage for its own interests. This is about a critical infrastructure, namely freight and air traffic in Germany and to the rest of the world. (…) Right to strike, yes – but not at any price.”

Relief flights are dispatched

Ver.di Vice President Christine Behle had declared that emergency services would exempt relief flights to the Turkish-Syrian earthquake zone from the strike. In addition, aid supplies could be flown out via Frankfurt-Hahn Airport, which is not under strike. According to the airlines, cargo planes planned for Friday by Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa Cargo should be allowed to take off.

However, an unknown number of passenger flights to Turkey, which could at least theoretically have transported relief supplies as additional cargo, are also canceled at the seven airports affected by the strike.

Munich Security Conference recommends traveling by train

The warning strike begins at the beginning of the Munich Security Conference, which is considered one of the most important meetings on security policy worldwide. The airport operator emphasized that flights for the security conference are exempt from the suspension of normal passenger operations in Munich.

The conference is working on being able to guarantee the arrival of the participants. Behle had recommended traveling by train or via Nuremberg Airport.