German airline crew strike starts

German airline Germanwings cancelled 60 flights yesterday, the first of the three-day strike called by the cabin crew union Ufo.

Service at the Cologne Bonn Airport was particularly affected by the strike, with airports in Berlin, Dusseldorf and Munich also hit by cancellations.

The strike over the New Year’s holiday is expected to scratch 180 flights from the schedule in total.

An airline spokeswoman told DPA that of the 1,200 flights during the strike period, more than 1,000 will operate as usual.

Most of the flights cancelled yesterday were domestic, but some routes to Vienna and Zurich were also disrupted.

The situation at Cologne Bonn Airport was calm, without long queues forming at service desks.

Most passengers were informed beforehand and didn’t even travel to the airport, an airport spokesperson said.

Germanwings operates flights for Lufthansa low-cost subsidiary Eurowings; about 30 out of Eurowings’ fleet of 140 planes belong to Germanwings.

Germanwings employs about 1,400 people for Eurowings, 800 of them cabin crew.

Lufthansa’s integration of the companies is at the heart of the labour dispute.

At issue in the current strike is regulations covering part-time work.

The trade union is seeking a separate collective agreement on part-time work arrangements for Germanwings cabin crew.

The company is offering the subsidiary a scheme that corresponds to Lufthansa’s part-time policy, which it describes at the best “that exists in the industry”.

Most of Germanwings’ cabin crew are women, some of whom wish to switch from full-time to part-time for family reasons.

Germanwings denied such requests in some cases, leading to resentment on the part of the employees.

But the company said that in 2019 “almost all” part-time requests from the 800 flight attendants had been granted, with only 11 requests denied “for operational reasons”, the company said.

But the cabin crew union Ufo says more clarification on parttime policy is needed.

It rejects the Lufthansa parttime collective wage agreement, as it has significant weaknesses – some of its part-time models are only limited in time, the Ufo argues.