Flight cancellations and delays are expected as workers at several major European airports strike this week.
A two-day strike by workers at Munich Airport, Germany’s second largest airport, started on Thursday and had already resulted in most flights being cancelled.
The airport operator said airlines had cancelled about 80 per cent of their flights to and from Munich and further cancellations were not ruled out.
A union for service workers called the “warning strike”, a tactic often used in German pay negotiations, on Monday as it seeks to step up pressure in ongoing talks with the federal government and municipal authorities on wages and working conditions for public sector employees.
The industrial action is set to end at midnight on Friday.
Workers at ground handling services are among those taking part.
Public sector workers also walked off the job in various other locations and services in Germany.
Those included some workers at Hamburg Airport, though the airport said the only flights cancelled were those to and from Munich, German news agency dpa reported.
Hamburg Airport advised travellers to arrive early and, if possible, with only hand luggage.
Meanwhile, air traffic controllers will be among the workers to join a nationwide strike in Greece on February 28, grounding almost all commercial flights in and out of the country.
The walkout is part of a general strike demanding justice for the 57 victims of the Tempe train crash, which happened two years ago.
The air traffic controllers’ union confirmed their participation in the 24-hour work stoppage.
During the strike, they will only handle essential flights, such as medical evacuations, search and rescue operations, humanitarian aid deliveries, military aircraft, and other emergencies. This means commercial passenger flights will be heavily disrupted, if not entirely cancelled, for the duration of the strike.
In the past, courts have often declared the participation of air traffic controllers in general strikes as illegal.
The latest strike has been timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the rail disaster in which 57 people were killed at Tempe, northern Greece, in a head-on collision between a freight train and a passenger train. The crash on Feb. 28, 2023, exposed shortcomings in safety equipment in Greece’s railway system and led to the resignation of the transport minister.
But the official handling of the disaster has been criticized, with public anger over delays in the inquiry and allegations of a cover-up that the government strongly denies. Some have alleged the freight train had been carrying dangerous chemicals that ignited, producing an intense fire that killed many of the victims.
