Lufthansa passengers faced massive travel disruptions on Wednesday when a strike resulted in the German airline group canceling almost all of its flights from its domestic hubs in Frankfurt and Munich.
Lufthansa has canceled more than 1,000 flights after a day-long ground crew strike called by the powerful Verdi union earlier in the week.
The disruption promises to make a turbulent summer even more painful for air travel across Europe.
Lufthansa had already canceled thousands of flights in the summer as the airline industry struggled with ground disruptions.
The easing of coronavirus rules has boosted demand, but chronic staff shortages have left passengers facing flight disruptions, long queues and lost luggage.
“Lufthansa cut staff during the (corona) crisis, despite savings made by taxpayers, and now there are staff shortages everywhere,” said Verdi-Lufthansa representative Marvin Reschinsky.
“We now need financial investments in staff so that air travel can continue to be possible in the future,” he told the AFP news agency.
Participation in the strike was “enormous,” he said, reflecting the financial pressure workers were feeling from the recent spike in inflation, which stood at 7.6 percent in Germany last month.
The ground staff “deserved” a raise, said Lufthansa employee Katharina Horn.
After two years of the pandemic that ravaged the industry and led to lengthy work stoppages for employees, “all savings have been used up,” she told AFP.
“We would not have had to go out on the street today. Lufthansa could have avoided that with a reasonable offer,” she said.
The strike was “completely unnecessary” and “destroyed the holiday dreams of more than 100,000 people,” said Lufthansa spokesman Martin Leutke.
Lufthansa was looking for alternatives for stranded passengers, but Leutke warned that the procedure “is not easy in the peak travel season because all flights are fully booked”.
“I wanted to go to Tunis but the flight was cancelled,” Adel Zayani told AFP, adding that he now had to wait for a flight tomorrow.
The strike is “good for the people, workers” who have to earn money, but “not easy” for the passengers, said the 56-year-old.
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