This Tuesday, Lufthansa ground staff have once again been called upon to go on a major warning strike and as a result, numerous flights will be canceled on Monday evening. At the Frankfurt hub, the airline canceled 55 flights, as the departure board shows. European flights in particular were canceled, while important intercontinental connections to Buenos Aires or Cape Town, for example, were still scheduled to take off.
A Lufthansa spokesman explained that the cancellations were partly caused by the strike by technical staff that began at 8 p.m. As part of the warning strike, the Verdi union called on employees from Lufthansa Technik, logistics and IT as well as the Lufthansa Cargo freight division to stop work from Monday evening. The warning strike in areas close to passengers such as check-in and check-in will follow on Tuesday at 4 a.m. and is scheduled to end on Wednesday at 7:10 a.m. In addition to Lufthansa’s two most important locations, Frankfurt and Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne-Bonn and Stuttgart airports are also affected.
A Lufthansa spokesman explained that some flights on Monday were canceled for organizational reasons so that the planes would be in the right place after the strike ended on Wednesday morning and operations could be restarted quickly. Verdi negotiator Marvin Reschinsky said that from the union’s point of view, the flight cancellations on Monday were not necessary; During the first warning strike on February 7th, flight operations were possible without any problems the evening before. Overall, Lufthansa wants to maintain ten to 20 percent of the offer as before.
Passengers should stay at home because the rebooking counters are not staffed either
With the new warning strike, Verdi wants to increase the pressure in the collective bargaining round for Lufthansa employees on the ground. The service union speaks of around 25,000 employees, the company around 20,000. The negotiations are scheduled to continue this Wednesday. In Munich, around 170 employees of “Deicing and Aircraft Towing at Munich Airport GmbH” (EFM) have also been called on a warning strike for the first time. Verdi wants to enforce a first collective agreement with this joint subsidiary of the airport and Lufthansa.
Since the rebooking counters are not staffed due to the warning strike, Lufthansa advises passengers on canceled flights not to come to the airport. Rebookings are possible via the Lufthansa app or service center. The other airlines in the group are not affected by the warning strike: Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Swiss and the regional airline Lufthansa Cityline. You can largely fly regularly, as Lufthansa announced.
The pilots’ strike at the Lufthansa subsidiary Discover on Monday had almost no impact: it only had to cancel a single Mallorca flight in Frankfurt.