Almost all of Germany’s airports will be hit by a 24-hour strike after trade union Verdi called for employees in the public sector and ground handling to walk out, it said.
The planned strike on March 10 marks a major escalation in negotiations after Verdi staged several walk-outs at some airports in Germany, including a two-day strike at Munich, in late February.
The union warned in a statement on March 7 that passengers should prepare for heavy restrictions on departures and arrivals, including flight cancellations.
The country’s two busiest airports – Frankfurt and Munich – were scheduled to operate 2,000 flights on March 10, a spokesperson for the ADV airport association told Reuters.
Frankfurt Airport said there would very likely be no departures from Germany’s main hub. It advised passengers to refrain from coming to the airport and called on those transferring through the airport to check the flight status on their airline’s website.
More than 150,000 passengers would be affected, it added.
Other airports to be affected on March 10 included Stuttgart, Cologne/Bonn Dusseldorf, Dortmund, Hannover, Bremen, Hamburg, Berlin and Leipzig-Halle.
Germany’s air traffic control operator, DFS, said it would not be directly affected by the strikes.
Verdi, which is demanding an 8 per cent wage increase, or at least an increase of €350 more per month, as well as higher bonuses and additional time off, said it called the warning strike after a second round of collective bargaining failed in February.
Employers have rejected the demands as unaffordable.
Negotiations are due to continue later in March.
