From Monday to Wednesday, the pilots of the Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings go on strike again. The airline announced that many of the planned flights could take place. Nevertheless, hundreds of connections are likely to fail.
Before the three-day pilots’ strike at Eurowings announced from Monday, the airline announced that it wanted to keep the impact on flight operations to a minimum. The company announced in Cologne that a good half of the planned flights should still take place. The union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) called for the uprising in order to achieve a reduction in the workload for cockpit staff.
Of the around 400 Eurowings flights planned for Monday, more than 230 could take place, Eurowings said. This also applies to the majority of passengers. For Tuesday and Wednesday, the Lufthansa subsidiary also assumes that it will be able to offer more than half of the planned flight program. A special flight plan was published for Monday, and this should be done as soon as possible for the next few days. Passengers were asked to keep themselves informed about the status of their flight and, if necessary, about alternative transportation and rebooking options.
The majority of the flights can take place because the machines of the Austrian subsidiary Eurowings Europe are not affected by the industrial dispute. During the strike, you fly “under full load,” it said. The airline Eurowings Discover, which operates from Frankfurt and Munich, is also not affected by VC’s current strike call. Eurowings has also secured extensive support from the Lufthansa Group and other airline partners for flight operations during the strike days, it said. In addition, it is expected “that numerous pilots of Eurowings Germany will appear on duty despite the VC strike”.
Eurowings also made it clear that, despite the call for a strike, no further concessions were planned in the wage dispute. With the offered ten additional days off a year with a three-hour reduction in weekly working hours, the limit of what is economically justifiable has been reached. “With the renewed threat of strikes, VC is willingly endangering the future of Eurowings Germany,” said Kai Duve, Chief Financial Officer and Human Resources Manager, in a statement published on Saturday.
The union had rejected Eurowings’ offers as “completely inadequate”. VC also accused the company of “wanting to play for time”. Above all, the union is demanding a limit on the maximum flight duty times and an extension of the rest periods for pilots. “This strike would not be necessary if Eurowings negotiated with us on an equal footing,” the union said.
It is the second time in less than 14 days that pilots at the Lufthansa subsidiary have stopped working. During the first strike on October 6, about half of all flights were canceled. Tens of thousands of passengers therefore had to switch to other flights or the train – or postpone their journey.