Warning strike at Berlin airport – flights from Switzerland are also affected

Due to a warning strike, no passenger flights will depart from Berlin Airport this Monday. Some of the aircraft arrivals are also affected and canceled.

The Verdi trade union called on employees in aviation security, passenger control and personnel and goods control to stop working from 3:30 a.m. to midnight. The airport then announced that no passenger flight could take off.

Almost all of the approximately 240 originally scheduled departures were already canceled on the airport’s website on Sunday. Some of the approximately 240 scheduled aircraft arrivals were also said to have been “cancelled”.

Swiss also expected flight cancellations and delays that day. However, flights to Berlin must be carried out as planned. Passengers should contact the airlines.

The airport assumed that part of the landings would be canceled because the aircraft could no longer take off with new passengers and continue flying after arrival.

Multiple work interruptions

The warning strike at the capital’s airport joins a long list of work stoppages, especially in traffic, in recent weeks. There were warning strikes at Düsseldorf, Cologne/Bonn and Hamburg airports only on Thursday and Friday, and also at Stuttgart and Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden airports on Friday. The warning strikes led to numerous flight cancellations, affecting tens of thousands of people. On Saturday there was another strike at Baden airport.

In Hamburg, flight operations were running at full speed this weekend. Especially on Saturday there were still aftereffects of the strike with overcrowded terminals and full flights. Many holiday travelers at the end of the Easter holidays in Schleswig-Holstein had their canceled flights rebooked to Saturday. Sunday was pretty normal.

Train traffic also came to a standstill for hours on Friday morning because the collective labor agreement negotiations between rail and transport union EVG and 50 railway companies have stalled. The union had called for an eight-hour strike to put pressure on employers for the next negotiations.

More strikes threatened

The next talks between EVG and Deutsche Bahn are scheduled for Tuesday – but a solution to the wage dispute is considered extremely unlikely. The EVG has already threatened further warning strikes.

The reason for the warning strikes at the airport on Thursday, Friday and Monday are negotiations on surcharges for night, Saturday, Sunday and public holidays and regulations on overtime pay for security and service personnel. Talks have been going on for some time between Verdi and the Federal Association of Aviation Security Companies (BDLS).

The airport association ADV appealed to the collective labor agreement partners to come to an agreement at the negotiating table. “An all-day strike closing the capital’s airport to international air traffic has long ceased to be a warning strike,” the union said in a statement. The announcement at short notice meant that affected passengers hardly had the chance to “seek alternative travel options”.

(yam/sda/dpa)