On Wednesday there will be a strike at Lufthansa for more wages. The Verdi union called for this. Meanwhile, the head of the union, Frank Werneke, is on vacation himself and will not be on duty until mid-August.
Nothing works – that could be the motto at Frankfurt and Munich airports on Wednesday. The two Lufthansa hubs are on strike by 20,000 employees of the Verdi union on this day and will stop working until Thursday, 6 a.m. These are primarily ground staff, but Eurowings, Swiss and other airlines are also affected.
However, Frank Werneke, chairman of Verdi, will not be present at the warning strikes. The reason: The 55-year-old went on vacation.
A spokesman for the union confirmed to “Bild” that Werneke was not available at the moment. The Verdi boss is on vacation until August 12th. Other people who want to take a vacation look down the drain on precisely this issue because of the strike by his union.
While Werneke’s deputy Christian Behle considers the flight chaos to be reasonable, but replies that “the burden on the employees is currently unbearable”, Lufthansa HR manager Michael Niggemann again criticized the warning strike as excessive. The early escalation of the collective bargaining conflict after just two days of negotiations in what has been a constructive round of bargaining is causing enormous damage, he explained. This particularly affects customers in the main travel season, but also employees in an already difficult phase of air traffic.
On Tuesday it was announced that almost all Lufthansa flights in Munich and Frankfurt will be cancelled. More than 130,000 passengers are affected.
In Frankfurt, a total of 678 flights have to be canceled, as Lufthansa announced – 32 of them on Tuesday and 646 on Wednesday. 92,000 passengers are expected to be affected. A total of 345 flights have to be canceled at the hub in Munich, 15 of them on Tuesday and 330 on Wednesday. 42,000 passengers are expected to be affected.