The Munich airport, the second largest in Germany, announced on Wednesday the cancellation of all its flights for Friday, due to a staff strike over salary conditions. “Due to the strike… there will be no regular passenger flight between 00:00 next Friday and 01:00 Saturday,” the airport administrator said in a statement, adding that more than 700 departures and arrivals were affected.
Only certain “special” flights will be operated, such as “humanitarian, medical, technical flights,” or those carrying participants to the Munich Security Conference, a diplomatic gathering that hosts international leaders from Friday to Sunday.
Lufthansa IT system failure is already causing disruption today
Workers at seven of Germany’s biggest airports have been called on strike by the Verdi union amid tense wage negotiations. Frankfurt airport, the country’s largest, warned that traffic would be “significantly disrupted” and advised passengers to “refrain from traveling to the airport.” The one-day work stoppage will also affect the airports of Bremen, Dortmund, Hamburg, Hannover, Munich and Stuttgart.
These announcements come as the airports of Munich and Frankfurt were already considerably affected on Wednesday by a failure that affected Lufthansa’s computer system after an accidental break in an underground cable at a construction site.
Around 300 canceled flights at Berlin airport in January
Unions and employers are holding sectoral negotiations for public sector workers, airport ground crews and aviation security personnel, who are demanding better wages to make up for the loss in purchasing power linked to high inflation. Verdi staged a similar strike at the Berlin airport last month, resulting in around 300 flights being canceled or rescheduled.
The inflation records recorded in recent months in Germany, with a peak of 10.4% in October, have strained annual wage negotiations in the different sectors of activity in the country, sometimes accompanied by work stoppages. The employees of Correos have thus observed several days of strike since the beginning of the year, at the call of the Verdi union that demands in particular a 15% increase in wages.
Source: BFM TV
