Nothing worked at Lufthansa for a day: the company had to cancel more than 800 flights due to a pilot strike. Now everything is running again – but the conflict has not been resolved.
According to the company, flight operations at Lufthansa are largely back to normal after the end of the pilots’ strike. “Following yesterday’s strike, Lufthansa flight operations have started as planned at both Frankfurt Airport and Munich Airport,” the company said.
Delays and individual flight cancellations had occurred at both airports, Lufthansa explained. The cancellations are still due to the strike, affected passengers were already informed on Thursday. “Apart from that, normal flight operations are back.”
According to the information, everything was also stable at Frankfurt Airport. A spokeswoman for the operator Fraport spoke of only slightly increased waiting times until midday. It is the last weekend of the school holidays in Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, in Bavaria there are still summer holidays until mid-September. No difficulties were reported by other German airports either. On Friday, Lufthansa canceled all arrivals and departures from and to the hubs in Frankfurt and Munich.
Lufthansa: Claims too expensive
The pilots’ union “Vereinigung Cockpit” (VC) called for the one-day strike after collective bargaining with Lufthansa failed. Lufthansa has criticized the strike call and called on VC to return to the negotiating table. According to Lufthansa, VC’s demands would increase personnel costs in the cockpit by 40 percent. This is beyond reasonable, even without considering the financial consequences of the Corona crisis.
In addition to 5.5 percent more money this year, the VC had demanded an automated compensation above inflation from 2023. There would also be a new salary table and more money for sick days, holidays and training. Over a period of two years, that would mean an additional burden of 900 million euros, according to Lufthansa.
The automated adjustment for inflation offered Lufthansa a legal point of attack. You failed before the Munich Labor Court with the application for an injunction against the strike. However, the Cockpit Association withdrew the demand for automated compensation, which the court also judged to be “legally unobjectionable”, and examined other formulations.
It was only in July that the Verdi union almost paralyzed the flight operations of the largest German airline for a whole day with a warning strike by ground staff. The flight attendants’ union Ufo wants to negotiate for its members in the fall. It declared its “express and unreserved solidarity” with the pilots’ strike.
Source: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
