Germany: new strike at Lufthansa on Tuesday and Wednesday

Flight attendants at Europe’s leading airline Lufthansa are called to strike on Tuesday for all flights departing from Frankfurt Airport and on Wednesday for all departing from Munich, the UFO union has announced.

“The group announced a record result on Thursday (…) Flight attendants must be able to benefit from this success and the efforts made during the coronavirus crisis must be compensated,” UFO union leader Joachim Vázquez Bürger said in the press. release.

The strike, which will affect both employees of Lufthansa and its subsidiary CityLine, is due to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday from 4:00 to 23:00.

“Management wants the situation to worsen to the detriment of passengers.”

With net profits of 1.67 billion euros in 2023, up 112% from last year, German carrier Lufthansa announced on Thursday its “third-best result in (its) history.” However, various categories of the group’s employees feel their salaries are not following the same growth trajectory after a long period of soaring prices that have eroded their purchasing power.

Thus, Lufthansa ground staff were off work again from Thursday to Saturday morning, paralyzing traffic at Germany’s main airports.

For UFO flight attendant union negotiator Harry Jaeger, the cup is also full. “After 15 rounds of negotiations without an agreement, we unfortunately have to assume that management wants the situation to get worse to the detriment of passengers,” he said on Saturday night.

“We deeply regret that it has come to this and ask passengers (…) to apologize for the inconvenience caused,” added Joachim Vázquez Bürger.

Organized meetings

On the first day of the strike, Tuesday at Frankfurt, Germany’s largest airport, the union is calling on flight attendants to meet in the morning and then head to the group’s headquarters in the central city. On the second day, Wednesday, a rally is also organized at Munich Airport.

For several months now, Germany has been gripped by a wave of strikes in various sectors, including transport, not only at Lufthansa, but also at the railway operator Deutsche Bahn.