The cabin crew of Europe's leading airline group Lufthansa are called to strike on Tuesday for all flights departing from Frankfurt airport and on Wednesday for all those departing from Munich, the UFO union announced.
“On Thursday the group announced a record result (…) Cabin crew must be able to benefit from this success and the efforts made during the coronavirus crisis must be compensated,” declared the leader of the UFO union, Joachim Vazquez Bürger, in a press release.
The strike, which concerns both staff at Lufthansa and its subsidiary CityLine, is due to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday between 4 a.m. and 11 p.m.
“Management wants the situation to get worse to the detriment of passengers”
With a net profit of 1.67 billion euros in 2023, up 112% year-on-year, the German carrier Lufthansa announced on Thursday “the third best result in (its) history”.
However, different categories of staff in the group believe that their salaries are not following the same upward trajectory after a long period of soaring prices which undermined their purchasing power.
Thus, Lufthansa ground staff once again walked off the job between Thursday and Saturday morning, paralyzing traffic in the main German airports.
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For the negotiator of the UFO cabin crew union, Harry Jaeger, the cup is also full.
“After 15 rounds of negotiations without an agreement, we must unfortunately assume that management wants the situation to get worse to the detriment of passengers,” he said on Saturday evening.
“We deeply regret that it has come to this and ask passengers (…) to apologize for the inconvenience to come,” added Joachim Vazquez Bürger.
Die Gewerkschaft UFO hat das Cabinenpersonal der Lufthansa für Dienstag, den 12. März und Mittwoch, den 13. März zum Streik aufgerufen.
Lufthansa receives information with umfassenden Auswirkungen auf the Flightprogramm.
Gäste, deren Flug durch den UFO-Streik betroffen ist, (1/2)
— Deutsche Lufthansa (@Lufthansa_DE) March 9, 2024
Organized gatherings
On the first day of the strike, Tuesday, at Frankfurt, Germany's largest airport, the union is calling on cabin crew to meet in the morning and then travel to the group's headquarters in this central city.
On the second day, Wednesday, a rally is also organized at Munich airport.
For several months, Germany has been hit by a wave of strikes in various sectors, including transport, not only at Lufthansa but also at the railway operator Deutsche Bahn.