Hundreds of flights cancelled due to Lufthansa ground crew strike

April 22, 2013 01:19 pm | Updated June 13, 2016 01:48 pm IST - Berlin

Employees of Lufthansa ground personnel walk through a terminal at Frankfurt airport during a strike of the ground staff of German airline Lufthansa, Frankfurt, Germany.

Employees of Lufthansa ground personnel walk through a terminal at Frankfurt airport during a strike of the ground staff of German airline Lufthansa, Frankfurt, Germany.

The ground crew of Deutsche Lufthansa AG went on strike early Monday over working conditions, causing the cancellation of almost all of the airline’s flights, a trade union official said.

The strike started around 4 am (0200 GMT) in Stuttgart and an hour later in other airports around the country. It was announced in advance and was planned to last 24 hours.

“The terminal is almost empty, because most passengers were prepared” and made other arrangements, said Gerold Schaub of the trade union Verdi, speaking from Frankfurt airport.

Of the planned 1,720 Lufthansa flights Monday, only 32 were expected to run, the company said Saturday.

It is the second wave of strikes over wages and working conditions for about 33,000 technicians and service workers. The first action by Verdi resulted in 700 flight cancellations on March 21.

Verdi representatives have demanded job guarantees and a 5.2 per cent raise. Lufthansa has countered with a modified offer that would take job classification and performance into account.

It would provide raises of more than 3 per cent for certain job groups over 29 months, but Verdi has responded that some categories of worker would end up earning less in real terms.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.