Lufthansa, AUA's parent company, is faced with striking ground staff. Employees at Germany's central airports have stopped working. Hundreds of flight cancellations are expected.
The second warning strike by ground staff in Germany began at Lufthansa, AUA's parent company. The company expects hundreds of flight cancellations and more than 100,000 passengers to be affected. The company has already canceled several calls at its most important hub in Frankfurt on Monday night. Only a few intercontinental flights are still expected to take place. According to a spokeswoman, Austrian Airlines (AUA) flights will not be affected for now.
On Monday night, Lufthansa employees in the areas of technology, logistics, freight and IT went on a warning strike, as Verdi strike leader Marvin Reschinsky confirmed. Ground staff at the Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart locations will follow on Tuesday at 4am.
The airline wants to fly 10 to 20 percent of its planned program of around 1,000 flights on Tuesday. During the first wave of alert strikes, almost two weeks ago, around 900 flights were canceled and more than 100,000 passengers had to reschedule. Lufthansa warned passengers on canceled flights: they should not come to the airport because the rebooking counters were unstaffed, information systems said.
The pilots' strike at Discover, a subsidiary of Lufthansa, went much more smoothly, which only had to cancel a single flight from Mallorca to Frankfurt. According to a company spokesperson, the Cockpit Association's first solidarity strike on Lufthansa's long-haul flights was completely absorbed. All four takeoffs of Lufthansa's striking Boeing 787 subfleet were possible without restrictions on Monday.
Collective bargaining for 25 thousand employees
The backdrop to the ground staff warning strike is group-wide collective wage negotiations for, according to Verdi, around 25,000 employees on the ground – including at Deutsche Lufthansa, Lufthansa Technik, Lufthansa Cargo, Lufthansa Technik Logistik Services, Lufthansa Engineering and Operational Services. and other group companies. Lufthansa speaks of around 20 thousand employees.
Collective bargaining is expected to continue on Wednesday. Verdi described the second wave of warning strikes as necessary because Lufthansa had made no move to improve its existing offer in previous negotiations. (APA/DPA)