A German airline has cancelled more than 1,000 flights on Wednesday due to a one-day strike by its ground staff.
Almost all Lufthansa flights in Germany were scrapped in a dispute over pay, affecting tens of thousands of passengers in the latest chaos to hit the travel industry. About 134,000 passengers have been forced to change their travel plans or cancel them altogether.
Lufthansa’s main hubs in Frankfurt and Munich were most affected, but flights were also cancelled in Duesseldorf, Hamburg, Berlin, Bremen, Hannover, Stuttgart and Cologne. The airline advised affected passengers not to come to the airports because most of the counters there would not be staffed.
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Lufthansa operates flights from Liverpool John Lennon Airport to its hub in Frankfurt. The flight scheduled for Wednesday morning was cancelled, despite a LJLA spokesperson previously confirming it was expected to operate as normal.
The German service workers’ union ver.di announced the strike on Monday in an effort to increase pressure on the airline in negotiations over pay for around 20,000 of its logistical, technical and cargo subsidiaries employees. The walkout comes at a time when airports across Europe are already seeing disruption and long queues for security checks because of staff shortages and soaring travel demand.
As inflation soars, strikes for higher pay by airport crews in France and Scandinavian Airlines pilots in Sweden, Norway and Denmark have deepened the chaos for travellers who have faced last-minute cancellations, lengthy delays, lost luggage or long waits for bags in airports across Europe. Travel demand has surged this summer with the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, putting the aviation sector under immense pressure as it struggles with a lack of staff.
The Lufthansa strike started at 3.45am local time on Wednesday (2.45am BST) and is set to end early on Thursday. Such “warning strikes” are a common tactic in German labour negotiations and typically last from several hours to a day or two.
Ver.di is calling for a 9.5% pay increase this year and says an offer by Lufthansa earlier this month, which would involve a deal for an 18-month period, falls far short of its demands. Michael Niggemann, Lufthansa’s chief personnel officer, argued that “this so-called warning strike in the middle of the peak summer travel season is simply no longer proportionate.”
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