Pilot strike at Eurowings also leads to numerous flight cancellations on Wednesday
Third day of the strike at the airline Eurowings: numerous flights were canceled again for Wednesday. According to the flight plan, 32 connections are affected at BER. The airline, meanwhile, has put its growth plans on hold.
At BER Airport in Schönefeld (Dahme-Spreewald), numerous Eurowings flights were canceled on the third day of the strike.
As on the previous day, 32 connections were canceled on Wednesday, for example to Gran Canaria and Mallorca. That goes from the Flight schedule on the BER website [ber.berlin-airport.de] out.
Eurowings pilots have been on strike since Monday. It’s the second strike in a month. Above all, the pilots are demanding that the maximum flight duty times be reduced and the rest periods increased. Eurowings considers this to be economically unacceptable.
In response to the strike, Eurowings announced on Tuesday that it would put its growth plans in Germany on hold. The reason for this was “massive strike damage,” the airline said.
It was also said that the continued escalation strategy of the Vereinigung Cockpit union lacked the necessary security for further investments. Therefore, the fleet strength for the coming year will only comprise 76 aircraft – five fewer than previously planned. This will also stop the creation of at least 200 jobs.
Chief Financial Officer Kai Duve reported on Monday at Cologne/Bonn Airport that every day of the strike costs the Lufthansa subsidiary a double-digit million euro amount. As a result, the strike is jeopardizing jobs, the manager warned, emphasizing that the union’s demands had already been met to a great extent. So this calls for a reduction of the maximum weekly working time by five hours and you offer a minus of three hours. According to the company, the maximum weekly working time is currently expected to be 55 hours.
The fact that some of the flights can take place despite the strike is not least due to the fact that the machines of the Austrian subsidiary Eurowings Europe are not affected by the industrial action. During the strike they are said to be flying “at full capacity”. The airline Eurowings Discover, which operates from Frankfurt and Munich, is also not affected by VC’s current strike call. The Lufthansa subsidiary also used aircraft from partner companies, which also carry out some of the flights, it said.
Broadcast: rbb24 Inforadio, October 19, 2022, 8:00 a.m