Lufthansa strike grounds another 100,000 passengers
ATP- Arab tourism portal- Berlin- Lufthansa scrapped 930 more flights Wednesday, grounding 100,000 passengers, after a court allowed cabin staff to press on with a strike that is shaping up to be the worst in the German airline’s history.
The new flight cancellations in and out of Germany’s biggest airport, Frankfurt, as well as hubs in Munich and Duesseldorf, come after four days of stoppages that had already forced the airline to cancel 2,800 flights, leaving 330,000 passengers stranded.
The industrial action over a dispute with the UFO flight attendants union over cost cuts began on Friday with a pause on Sunday, and is set to go on until Friday.Lufthansa had sought to challenge the legality of the industrial action through court injunctions but lost a key bid after the labour court of Darmstadt, which has jurisdiction for Frankfurt and Munich airports, approved the strike.
The court dismissed the airline’s argument that the union’s reasons for striking were "too vague" and unjustified under German labour law.The UFO union welcomed the ruling on its website, calling for the strike to continue from 0300 GMT on Wednesday until 2300 GMT on Friday across all flights at Frankfurt, Munich and Duesseldorf airports.
Lufthansa in a statement said it stood by its position that "the reasons for the strike were not defined clearly enough" and said it would decide its "next steps" on Wednesday.
Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr signalled that he would not cede to the union’s demands, saying the dispute will run for as long as necessary even if he acknowledges that "each day of strike is one too many".
The legal setback came after an earlier symbolic victory for the airline dealt by another court which ruled that the strike affecting Duesseldorf airport was illegal – but that judgement was largely symbolic as it was limited to Tuesday only and came hours after flights had already been cancelled.
The same court was due to issue later Wednesday a ruling for the remaining period of the strike.
