GERMANY: Striking apron controllers at Germany's busiest airport continue their walk-out until they are offered 'substantial wage improvements'

Record ID: 340647

  • Title: GERMANY: Striking apron controllers at Germany's busiest airport continue their walk-out until they are offered 'substantial wage improvements'
  • Date: 18th February 2012
  • Summary: FRANKFURT, GERMANY (FEBRUARY 17, 2012) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PLANES PARKED AT TERMINALS PASSENGERS AT COUNTER IN DEPARTURE TERMINAL COUNTER PASSENGERS WEARING FACE MASKS WAITING IN TERMINAL PASSENGER LOOKING AT DEPARTURE DISPLAY CLOSE OF DEPARTURE BOARD SHOWING CANCELLED FLIGHTS AIRPORT TERMINAL OPERATION STAFF INFORMING PASSENGERS ABOUT STRIKE PASSENGER LOOKING UP
  • Embargoed: 4th March 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany, Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA955KU2B5ZEYPAK5BYS9GS9V0W
  • Story Text: Airlines including Deutsche Lufthansa will have to cancel hundreds more flights to and from Frankfurt on Friday (February 17) as a strike by airfield workers continues.
    Trade union GdF on Thursday asked about 200 apron controllers who guide planes in and out of parking slots to walk off the job for 14 hours on Friday (February 17) in addition to a seven-hour strike that started at 1400 GMT and resulted in 150 flight cancellations. The move comes after the union failed to reach a wage agreement for the workers with airport operator Fraport.
    "I can understand the anger of the passengers, I can only apologise in the name of the Fraport AG (airport operator). If it was going our way, we wouldn't be here as we would have a deal," said Markus Siebers, spokesperson of GdF.
    Fraport operations director Peter Schmitz said negotiations were not moving at the moment.
    "It goes on a bit more problematic than yesterday. Lufthansa at the moment plans to cancel 270 flights, but I think that one or another additional flight will also be cancelled. We also have to expect delays. This is out of question, but there won't be chaos, we are sure of that," said Schmitz.
    Long-haul flights were largely unaffected, as airlines chose to sacrifice flights mostly within Europe and especially Germany, where passengers could easily be booked on to trains. Frankfurt's airport is Europe's third-busiest after London-Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle, with about 1,300 flight movements per day, more than half of them by Lufthansa.
    At the airport, the word 'annuliert' (cancelled) appeared next to many flights on the big departure boards and people stood anxiously checking their flight numbers.
    "Of course I can understand that people go on strike. The last time I have been stopped by the volcano (in Iceland) and this time by the strike. That's why it is...I can fly intercontinental. Therefore I am happy. I can understand it, on the other side of course measures used to push this through are very annoying. I mean 50 percent (flights)are cancelled and this I can't understand. I am somewhere in between on this," passenger Sinidu Deneke said.
    British passenger Karl Cocher was reminded of his home country.
    "It's been a quite unusual experience in Germany. I have been to Germany many times on business and I have never experienced anything like this when I have been here before. So I have to say, it's becoming more like the UK," said Cocher.
    GdF has said apron controllers' pay needed to reflect extra complexity resulting from the recent opening of a fourth runway at the airport. Fraport, meanwhile, has said GdF's demands are too high.
    Last year, the GdF union and Germany's air safety authority DFS reached a deal in court averting a strike by air traffic controllers that would have disrupted thousands of flights cross Europe.
    During that bitter dispute, the German transport ministry stepped in to encourage the parties back to the negotiating table. The ministry declined to comment on the latest row on Thursday. In 2010, pilots at Lufthansa and the country's No.2 carrier Air Berlin were forced by judges to call off or curtail strikes.
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