In the latest installment of the Lufthansa Pilot’s Strike Saga, it appears that Germanwings pilots are set to walk off the job for 2 days starting at midnight local time on Thursday, February 12, ending midnight on Friday, February 13.
Germanwings will be providing an update on Wednesday that will indicate the impact that the strike will have on their operations.
The union that represents airport workers in Germany has called for a strike that will impact certain airports tomorrow, February 9.
Specifically, security workers will walk off the job at Hamburg, Stuttgart and Hannover which will in turn create long delays at security and cargo screening checkpoints at these airports.
Thus far, Lufthansa has cancelled 18 domestic flights due to tomorrow’s strike but has not yet posted anything on their ‘Flight Status’ web page regarding the strike. You can check here to see if your flight for tomorrow is affected.
Lufthansa unfortunately is battling labor issues on two fronts at the same time.
The more ‘popular’ of the two is the ongoing rift with the union that represents the majority of Lufthansa pilots, known as Vereingung Cockpit (VC). However another battle is being fought with UFO, who represents upwards of 18,000 cabin crew employees who are not pilots.
The latter battle, with UFO, appears to be making progress as both sides have agreed to meet for negotiations some time in mid-February following a vote of the membership that is taking place this month. The crux of the disagreements between Lufthansa and UFO revolves around 2 primary issues: Cabin crew pensions and how union-member employees will be treated as Lufthansa expands its Low Cost Carrier operations when it introduces WINGS this year.
It looks as though for now any strike threat from UFO is greatly diminished but the threat remains for VC to ask pilots to go on strike on relatively short notice.
More details as they become available……
