Frankfurt Strike Ruled Illegal But Berlin Airport Workers Say “Me Too!”

In news from Frankfurt, German courts have ordered a halt to the ongoing strike that is affecting operations at Frankfurt’s Airport. The strike has been ruled “illegal” and the courts are demanding that “industrial peace” is restored.
The court’s decision came late on Tuesday and still resulted in 235 flights being canceled on Wednesday. Barring any other surprises, operations should be far more normal on Thursday.

Meanwhile….

It appears that officials at German union Verdi, representing workers at both of Berlin’s Airports (Tegel and Schoenefeld), must have been reading LufthansaFlyer or more likely watching the news and now have come up with the novel idea of spreading the strikes to Berlin. In this attempt to capture attention, Verdi is threatening to strike with as little as 15 minutes notice as a reply to an ongoing wage dispute affecting ground staff at these airports.

In all of this, Lufthansa is now in a position to seek damages from the union since the strike has been ruled illegal. Lufthansa’s board member, Stefan Lauer stated that if in fact the strike is deemed illegal, Lufthansa would consider filing a claim seeking damages which have been calculated to be several million Euros.

Boeing 747-8i Delivered, But Owner Will Have To Wait 2 Years Before Being A Passenger

Today marked the delivery of the first passenger configured 747-8I. The owner is nearly confirmed as Qatari Amiri (Qatar Goverment Airline) and the aircraft was delivered basically as an empty shell but in a VIP configuration.

The owner however will not actually be able to put it to use for ANOTHER 2 YEARS!! Imagine buying your favorite “toy” only to have it tease you for 2 years while it is retrofitted and customized to your specifications. Personally, that would drive my quite nutty. I probably would have to move in to the factory where it is being retrofitted and be with it everday.

The plane left Seattle today and flew to Vancouver for customs/export processing and will then fly to Kansas to begin its custom interior installation. According to Boeing, it will take 6 months to install the Aeroloft system in the upper deck. Once that is finished, Lufthansa will actually have the plane in Hamburg for 2 years where Lufthansa’s Technik engineering superstars will complete the VIP installation.

Boeing indicated that it has sold 9 of these VIP versions, with most going to heads of states in the Middle East. Must be nice to be a head of state these days I suppose. Now we just need to get Congress to approve one for our own head of state.

Here are images from today’s delivery (Courtesy of SeattlePI.com):

Invalid request error occurred.
Invalid request error occurred.
Invalid request error occurred.

Imagines Of Potential VIP Interior (Courtesy of Boeing):

Invalid request error occurred.
Invalid request error occurred.
Invalid request error occurred.

Read yesterday’s post regarding the delivery of 747-8i here

My 747-8i Gallery