Under the treat of an employee strike, due to a pay dispute, Lufthansa has canceled most flights scheduled on Monday.
According to USA Today, The airline said Saturday that "only about 20 of more than 1,650 scheduled short-haul flights will operate Monday. Many long-haul flights also will be hit--only six of 50 planned flights will operate at its main Frankfurt hub, and only three of 17 in Munich. Duesseldorf airport's three scheduled long-haul services will go ahead as scheduled."
However, showing that they still are thinking about their passengers' well being, the airline stated that Monday flights can be rebook for free, and those booked on canceled German domestic flights can use their tickets to travel by train.
The verdi union announced the one-day "warning strike," which is a tactic commonly used by German unions to raise pressure in wage talks, on Friday. But, Lufthansa, on Wednesday, rejected the union's demand for wage increases of 5.2 percent over the next year and job guarantees.
The union has stated that Lufthansa's proposed offer represented an increase of less than one percent over a period of one year and that isn't acceptable to them.
This warning comes a month after the same exact "warning strike" that caused Lufthansa to cancel nearly 700 out of a total 1,800 flights.
Lufthansa board member Stefan Lauer said to Al Jazeera that the action, described as a 24-hour warning strike, was "de facto an all-out strike" that was "a completely excessive measure that can in no way be justified in view of the current state of negotiations."
On the other side of the fence, Verdi, again, according to Al Jazeera, has accused management that by not making any rock-solid guarantees they are "playing with employees' fears about their future and their jobs."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
