Pilots of the Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings went on a 24-hour strike on October 6th. Approximately scheduled 500 flights of that day had to be grounded , up to 30,000 passengers were affected..
But Eurowings claimed it had salvaged “half” of the planned flights. For some of the long-haul routes, the airline used aircraft from the non-striking Austrian subsidiary, Eurowings Europe , and partner companies.
The new threat from the cockpit will see half of the Eurowings flights being cancelled ! The reason for the cancellations is a three-day pilot strike.
Of the 400 planned Eurowings flights, only around 230 are scheduled to take off on Monday. Significant outages are also to be expected on Tuesday and Wednesday.
In the month of August , a ballot among Eurowings pilots produced a result of 97.7 percent in favour of strike action, based on 90 percent participation.
The Ccokpit crews are against the scandalous and dangerous permanent overload of work due to staff shortages. “The workload has increased considerably,” read a press release from the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) pilots union, which called for the strike action.
“The employer regularly extends the working hours of colleagues to the maximum permitted.” Eurowings has been rejecting a new contract with shorter deployment times and additional days off for months.
Pilots also need adequate financial compensation for the losses due to inflation and the losses they had suffered during the coronavirus pandemic through short-time working and lost wages. During the pandemic, the airport unions, including Vereinigung Cockpit, agreed to the suspension of contractually agreed wages, the waiving of additional wage payments and massive job cuts. The Lufthansa subsidiary Germanwings was wound up. Under pressure, Lufthansa pilots alone sacrificed around €800 million.
Although Lufthansa has long since recovered the losses it made during the pandemic—with the help of a substantial government bailout—the company has not reimbursed the sums extorted during the pandemic, and its pilots continue to work under heavy pressure. This explains their current anger and willingness to strike. It coincides with a growing wave of industrial action throughout the aviation sector.
Aviation workers acorss the industry are yet to be settled , calling for Industrial Action in their network . At the Rhein Main Airport, across Europe and around the world, air traffic strikes have been occurring repeatedly in recent weeks.
Few examples of these strikes are : In July, Lufthansa ground staff stopped work, while Ryanair crews held several 24-hour strikes across Europe, especially in Spain. On September 2, 5,000 Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cargo pilots went on strike. In Hanover, Swissport Cargo workers went on strike on the same day. Shortly afterwards, an air traffic controllers strike in France affected the whole of Europe.
Eurowings Managing Director Kai Duve had criticized on Saturday that the union was inevitably forcing Eurowings into a shrinking of German flight operations and endangering jobs - not only in the cockpit.
The strike affects Eurowings' domestic flights, but not those of its Austrian partner Eurowings Europe or those of Eurowings Discover, an airline that operates from Frankfurt and Munich and covers some European destinations.
