Strike at Lufthansa: even connections to Prague were cancelled
“Please avoid trips to the airport. Due to the strike, few or no service counters are open. It is highly unlikely that you will be offered an alternative connection,” Lufthansa said. Passengers with a canceled domestic flight can pick up a ticket for Deutsche Bahn trains free of charge, also online.
The strike comes before the last holiday weekend in Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, when residents return from vacation. Going on vacation or returning home was also complicated by the protest in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, where the summer vacation ends in a week.
The strike most affected Germany’s largest airports, which are Frankfurt am Main and Munich. There are long queues at the Lufthansa counters. Virtually all connections of this company were canceled at these airports. Flight cancellations also affected other German airports, such as Düsseldorf and Berlin. The connection between Prague and Frankfurt is also cancelled. Lufthansa canceled 800 flights to date, affecting roughly 130,000 passengers.
In a live feed from Frankfurt, public broadcaster ARD said passengers were irritated and upset. One of the passengers, who arrived from New York without the possibility of continuing on a connecting flight, said that apart from an email about the canceled connection, she had received no further information from the airlines on how she could continue to travel.
“I don’t know if he will transfer me to another flight, if I will continue by train, or if he will drive a rental car,” said the woman. But she added that she understands the reasons for the strike, so she has sympathy for the pilots.
The reason for the strike is disputes over wages. The pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) is asking for a 5.5 percent increase this year and the creation of a mechanism that would allow growth to outpace inflation in future years. Lufthansa claims that such requirements have increased the cost of cockpit staff by 40 percent. She herself proposes an increase in the basic monthly salary by 900 euros (22 thousand crowns). That represented an 18 percent increase for rookie pilots and a five percent increase for captains over the 18-month period, according to the new.
Lufthansa has called on the unions to return to the negotiating table. However, VC spokesman Matthias Baier said the airlines had not submitted any viable offer that could have prevented the strike.