Further warning strikes by aviation security staff in Germany

Further warning strikes by aviation security staff will result in restrictions for passengers in Germany on Friday. Members of the Verdi union have called warning strikes at Hanover, Dortmund, Weeze, Dresden, Leipzig and Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden airports. Several thousand passengers are affected. The first employees went on strike in Hanover late on Thursday evening. Verdi is using the warning strikes to increase pressure on employers ahead of the next round of negotiations on March 20.

Hundreds of connections were already canceled on Thursday

Warning strikes by security staff at five German airports had already brought operations to a virtual standstill on Thursday. Airports in Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden and Cologne/Bonn were affected. As a rule, all departures were canceled because passengers and goods could no longer pass through security checks. There were also numerous cancellations of landings. According to estimates by the airport association ADV, more than 580 flights were canceled. For Friday, the association expects a significantly lower number of canceled connections.

While no planes are scheduled to take off at all in Dortmund and Weeze on Friday, the strike in Hanover will only last from midnight to 12.00 am. Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport marked all six flights scheduled for Friday as canceled or diverted. According to Verdi, the warning strike in Dresden was to begin at 4.00 am and end at 12.00 am, while in Leipzig work is to be suspended from 6.00 am to 6.00 pm.

Negotiations for around 25,000 employees

The collective bargaining is about the wages and working conditions of around 25,000 employees of private security service providers. They check passengers, staff and baggage at the entrances to the security area on behalf of the Federal Police. There have been five rounds of negotiations in the wage dispute so far.

On Thursday evening, there was still movement in one of the other current wage disputes in the aviation sector: Verdi and Lufthansa announced that they were aiming for arbitration in the wage negotiations for ground staff. At the same time, Verdi wants to prepare a ballot to prepare the ground for "enforced strikes".

The employers criticized the extent of the current industrial action in air transport as inappropriate and pointed to millions of euros in economic damage. Unlike in the automotive or textile industries, for example, this loss of revenue could not subsequently be compensated for in extra shifts, the Federal Association of the German Air Transport Industry announced on Friday. "A canceled flight remains a lost flight." The unions were weakening the material basis of the companies and their employees, criticized Managing Director Matthias von Randow.