At Lufthansa, the pilots’ strike ended as planned at midnight. After more than 800 flights had to be canceled on Friday, the flight schedule has to be largely maintained on Saturday. Delays are possible, the company said.
The first departures from the Frankfurt and Munich hubs were early Saturday morning. The flight plan should be flown as fully as possible throughout the day, although delays are still to be expected.
Failed collective bargaining
A day earlier, Lufthansa had canceled flights with a total of 130,000 passengers as a precaution. The strike of the union “Vereinigung Cockpit” (VC) was limited to 24 hours from the start. It was named because VC considers the collective negotiations with Lufthansa to have failed. She had demanded, among other things, a wage increase of 5.5 percent and an automatic compensation above inflation from 2023. Other demands were a new pay scale and more money for vacation and training.
Lufthansa went to court
Lufthansa spoke of an extra charge of 900 million euros for two years and of personnel costs that would increase by 40 percent. This goes beyond what is acceptable. The automated inflation adjustment even provided the company with a legal point of attack. It filed a petition for an injunction against the strike to the Munich Labor Court but was unsuccessful.
However, this approach paid off: The court classified the claim as “not legally objectionable,” and so the union withdrew its claim for automatic inflation compensation.
Flight attendants also want to negotiate
It was only in July that the Verdi union paralyzed the flight operations of the largest German airline for almost an entire day with a ground crew warning strike. The flight attendant company Ufo wants to negotiate for its members in the autumn and has already declared its solidarity with the pilots’ strike.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
