After the end of the ban on night flights at 5 am, operations in Frankfurt began as normal. However, there will be more takeoffs and landings on Saturday to clear the delay. The spokeswoman reported queues in front of security checks.
The day after the strike notice, planes took off again at Munich Airport as normal – but it was significantly busier than usual. “There are no further failures related to the attack,” an airport spokesman said. However, he said, long queues formed at security checkpoints because “a lot of traffic was diverted from Friday to Saturday”. Also, Friday was the last day of school before the Bavarian carnival break.
The snakes “run through the building,” the spokesperson said. He was “enormously busy” – significantly more so than on a normal Saturday. However, it is difficult to estimate how long passengers would have to wait in line. He couldn’t say if any of them missed their flights because of it. “We have no chance of catching our flight,” said a passenger who said she was at the airport three hours before departure – and was still waiting in line half an hour before the plane was scheduled to take off.
Operations at Hamburg airport proceeded normally. “Everything is going perfectly normally,” a spokeswoman said. According to the website, the waiting time at the security checkpoint in the afternoon was a few minutes. It was said in the morning that the previous day’s rebookings could lead to a significantly higher load factor for individual flights. The spokeswoman emphasized in the afternoon that the airport only had figures on actual capacity utilization after the fact.
Operations at Stuttgart Airport are also back to normal. No failures were recorded in the flight schedule on Saturday morning. “Regular operations again,” the airport wrote on Twitter. According to a spokeswoman, only the first two flights were canceled at Bremen airport. Three more flights were canceled early in the morning in Hanover, but the first machines took off again around 5am.
A total of seven airports were largely brought to a standstill by Friday’s warning strike. Verdi’s union has called for a full-day strike and, in the current collective labor conflict in the public sector, is also threatening warning strikes at the rubbish dump, in hospitals or public order offices. According to the airport association ADV, around 300,000 passengers across the country were affected by 2,300 flight cancellations.
Passengers were also advised on Saturday to check the status of their flights. Even after the strike, there may be isolated changes to flight schedules, he said. In addition, passengers must report to the check-in desk in good time. Fraport recommends 2.5 hours before departure.