Travellers in Germany faced disruptions and flight cancellations on Monday as a 24-hour strike by workers hit 13 different airports, including some of the country’s busiest airline hubs.
Public service workers, ground staff and aviation security staff were all called to walk off the job starting just after midnight on Monday by the verdi trade union amid two different wage disputes.
The strikes will affect the Frankfurt and Munich airports, both key hubs for German airline Lufthansa, as well as the airports in Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover, Bremen, Dusseldorf, Dortmund, Cologne/Bonn, Leipzig/Halle and Stuttgart.
Security staff at two other smaller airports – the Weeze Airport near Dusseldorf and the Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport – were hit by only the aviation security strikes.
In Frankfurt, Germany’s busiest airport, no passenger aircraft will be able to depart on Monday, a spokesman for the air traffic management said.
For Frankfurt, 1,054 of the 1,116 take-offs and landings scheduled on Monday had been cancelled, affecting a total of around 150,000 passengers. According to the spokesman, there were only a few arrivals.
Air traffic at Berlin’s BER airport is expected to be completely cancelled, with no take-offs or landings.
Nationwide, more than 3,400 flights are expected to be cancelled and 510,000 passengers affected by the day-long strikes, according to earlier estimates from the ADV airport association.
According to German air traffic control, around 6,000 flight movements take place daily at German airports, with a further 3,000 passing through German airspace.
Twin pay disputes
Verdi has called out public service workers and the ground staff who clean, load and refuel aircraft as part of a broader wave of public sector strikes.
Further strikes in other types of facilities operated by the federal government and the local authorities are also to go ahead this week, a verdi spokesman said. The next round of pay talks, the third, has been scheduled for Potsdam near Berlin on Friday.
The public sector strike at airports was joined by employees in the aviation security sector. These are people who work in passenger control, personnel, goods and freight control as well as in service areas.
A new collective labour agreement is currently being negotiated for them. The next round of negotiations is scheduled for March 26 and 27.
For public sector workers, verdi is demanding 8% more pay, with at least €350 ($380) per month more, as well as an additional three days of leave for a total 2.5 million government workers.
Joachim Lang, head of the BDL air transport association described the strikes as disproportionate.
“An entire transport section is being shut down comprehensively, and that, while airports and airlines, as well as restaurants, retail and hotels are not parties to the agreement,” Lang said. “A collective bargaining conflict is being conducted on the backs of passengers, even before the next round of negotiations starts.”
He called for new rules governing strikes in critical infrastructure.
By Christian Ebner, Patricia Bartos and Niklas Treppner
