2024-08-28 01:56:28
A strike began in the Lufthansa Group last night. Passengers must expect delays and cancellations. Three unions are jockeying for influence at the young company Discover.
At the end of the holiday season, pilots and cabin crew at the Lufthansa subsidiary Discover Airlines have started to go on strike. This means that passengers will have to deal with delays and flight cancellations, the extent of which is not yet clear. The unions Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) and Ufo have called on the airline’s crews to go on a four-day strike that is due to last until Friday. All departures from Germany are affected, the first of which were planned for early in the morning. A Ufo spokesman confirmed the start of the strike last night.
Discover Airlines said it was working to minimize the impact on passengers and to offer as many flights as possible. Passengers should regularly check their flight status and provide contact details in their booking. During the four-day strike window, around 270 Discover flights on short, medium and long-haul routes from Frankfurt and Munich are planned, it said.
The company did not initially provide a figure for the expected flight cancellations. The Ufo union expects that Lufthansa will mitigate the effects of the strike by redistributing flights to other group companies.
The first flight affected by the strike was a plane to the Greek island of Corfu, which was scheduled to take off from Frankfurt Airport at 4:50 a.m. The flight was canceled. The holiday airline Discover Airlines, founded in 2021, has 27 planes with which it flies to holiday destinations in Europe and overseas. Around 1,900 people work on board.
The background to the industrial action is a conflict with the Verdi union, which concluded the first collective bargaining agreements for Discover pilots and flight attendants at the still young airline. In addition to regular wage increases for both professional groups of between 16 and 38 percent until the end of 2027, the Verdi contract contains provisions for allowances and working hours, company pension schemes and assistance in the event of loss of a pilot’s license.
The demands of Ufo and VC differ little in content from the agreement with Verdi, but the sector unions want to implement their own collective bargaining agreements. Verdi does not have enough members in flight operations and was appointed as a collective bargaining partner by Lufthansa management, they believe. For the unions VC and Ufo, it is also about influence in the parent company Lufthansa, in which they are firmly rooted in collective bargaining agreements.
The members of both unions had previously voted in favor of strikes in separate votes with a clear majority. The VC pilots had already gone on strike in several rounds this winter. The UFO had also called on its members to stop work in order to force negotiations.