Every month brings its share of strikes at LufthansaFollowing a strike on Thursday 12 and Friday 13 March, the cabin crew will in turn go on strike on April 10th. The information was communicated at the last minute, on April 8th in the afternoon by the UFO union.
The strike is expected to cause significant disruption, affecting all Lufthansa departures from its two main hubs in Frankfurt and Munich between 00:01 and 22:00.
The movement follows a union vote at the end of March, where a large majority had declared themselves in favour of a strike after negotiations with management failed. According to UFO, Lufthansa has not made significant progress in discussions regarding the improvement of working conditions for its approximately 19,000 cabin crew members.
The strike is not only affecting Lufthansa but also one of its subsidiaries, Lufthansa CityLine. As a regional airline, its cabin crew Lufthansa CityLine will cease work at nine German airports, including Hamburg, Bremen, Stuttgart, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Berlin and Hanover.
The staff are indeed concerned about the lack of prospects offered by management, as Lufthansa CityLine is set to be "diluted" very soon into another subsidiary of the group, Lufthansa City Airlines. Around 800 CityLine employees are affected by the closure.
Flights and additional capabilities of other group companies
Unsurprisingly, Lufthansa has criticised the strike as disproportionate and calls for dialogue to resume. The airline warned that the timing – coinciding with the end of the Easter holidays – would have a significant impact on passengers returning from their break.
The group’s management has indicated that a special flight plan has been put in place and that its passengers are automatically informed of any changes. It also states that other airlines in the group (Discovery Airlines, Eurowings, Lufthansa City Airlines) will continue to operate their flight schedules without modification, whilst additional flights or capacity are being put in place by Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, ITA Airways and Swiss.
