North Rhine-Westphalia: Lufthansa warning strike: Verdi expects long delays

Passengers had to be patient at Düsseldorf Airport anyway.

North Rhine-Westphalia: Lufthansa warning strike: Verdi expects long delays

Passengers had to be patient at Düsseldorf Airport anyway. Now the Lufthansa ground staff is down. The effects are initially limited. According to Verdi, this should change in the course of the day.

Düsseldorf/Cologne (dpa/lnw) - A warning strike by Lufthansa ground staff on Wednesday morning caused delays and isolated cancellations at Düsseldorf Airport. "We have full participation in the strike. We don't know of any scabs," said a spokesman for the Verdi union. As the day progresses, he expects more significant effects.

An airport spokesman said there were isolated failures. A Lufthansa flight to Munich did not start in the morning. The company's four other flights on Wednesday were also canceled. According to the plan, a flight to Lisbon was also canceled. According to a Verdi spokesman, the warning strike is also the cause here.

The other flights in the morning were delayed, but they started. Most passengers at Düsseldorf Airport didn't notice much of the warning strike in the morning. Queues formed at the check-in counters. But that had often been the case in the past few days.

The airport had feared serious impairments. According to Verdi, these could occur during the course of Wednesday. In Düsseldorf, a good 100 employees were called on to go on warning strikes. Among other things, employees of the Lufthansa subsidiary Leos, which takes over a large part of the pushbacks for several airlines, are involved. Aircraft are pushed backwards away from the parking position so that they can taxi to the runway.

According to a Verdi spokesman, the airport had already parked many aircraft the day before so that they could roll on Wednesday without pushback. In addition, "scab breakers" were hired by third-party companies for the pushbacks. However, one doubts that these would be available for two shifts. "In the course of the day, we therefore expect major delays."

Eurowings, the largest airline in North Rhine-Westphalia, had stated that sufficient spare capacity had been secured in Düsseldorf for towing and positioning the aircraft. A largely normal flight operation is expected. The strike call is not directed against Eurowings. Cologne/Bonn Airport is also affected by the warning strike. However, he expected only minor effects.

With the walkout, after several rounds of negotiations with Lufthansa, Verdi wants to put pressure on better pay for employees. Lufthansa canceled almost the entire program at its Frankfurt and Munich hubs on Wednesday. The total of ten arrivals and departures to Munich were also canceled in Cologne/Bonn. The walkout is expected to last until 6 a.m. Thursday.