- It’s a bad day to try to take a flight to or from Germany.
- A mass strike has caused huge disruption at the country’s airports on Monday.
- 94% of flights were canceled at Frankfurt Airport, the country’s busiest, a German news agency said.
Hundreds of thousands of passengers are facing disruption due to a strike in Germany, which has led to almost all flights at the country’s busiest airports being canceled Monday.
The 24-hour walkout began at midnight on Monday and immediately caused mass disruption.
At Frankfurt Airport, the country’s busiest, 94% of the day’s 1,116 scheduled takeoffs and landings have been canceled, the German news agency dpa reported.
“There will be massive disruptions at Frankfurt Airport all day today,” its website says, adding that passengers should not travel to the airport.
Munich Airport expected operations to be “severely disrupted,” while Berlin Brandenburg Airport said it will have no regular flights.
According to data from Cirium, 108 flights are scheduled between Germany and the US on Monday, accounting for over 31,000 seats.
On Friday, the service workers union ver.di called on public-sector employees and ground and security staff to go on strike.
It also targeted airports in Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover, Düsseldorf, Weeze, Dortmund, Cologne/Bonn, Leipzig/Halle, Stuttgart, and Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden.
Jens Ritter, the CEO of flag carrier Lufthansa, said in a Sunday LinkedIn post that he was “stunned and really worried.”
“What Verdi calls a ‘warning’ strike is again bringing air traffic to a halt,” he added, and called for “cooperation instead of confrontation.”
A warning strike is a common tactic in German labor negotiations. Monday’s action relates to two separate disputes — one for airport security workers and a wider one for public-sector employees.
Ver.di said negotiations for the more than 2.5 million federal and local government employees across Germany will continue on Friday.
It is calling for an 8% pay increase with a minimum increase of 350 euros ($380) a month, plus higher bonuses for stressful shift work and three more days off.
For aviation security workers, the union wants better occupational health and safety, 30 days of holiday, an annual bonus increase, and other bonuses.
Ver.di also wants restrictions on fixed-term contracts, saying that most aviation security specialists are hired on 24-month contracts, many of whom are then replaced by newly trained employees.
“Public employers should know that we are assertive. This will be made clear again in the coming days,” said ver.di chairman Frank Werneke on Monday.
