© dpa
All flights at Berlin's BER airport have been canceled since the morning due to the Verdi union's warning strike.
The strike is expected to last the entire day. According to a spokesperson, 246 arrivals and departures and 67,000 passengers will be affected. A total of 13 German airports are affected by the 24-hour warning strike. Flight operations at BER are scheduled to resume at the start of operations on Tuesday.
The employees of the companies responsible for ground transportation stopped work at around 3.30 a.m., as union secretary Enrico Rümker told the German Press Agency early this morning. BER Airport was open in the morning, but almost completely empty. The display boards showed the flights as "canceled". Few travelers were to be seen. Many stores were closed, police officers were walking through the empty corridors and halls.
The background to the warning strikes are two different wage disputes: in the wage negotiations for the federal and local public sector, the union is demanding, among other things, an eight percent wage increase, but at least 350 euros more per month, as well as three additional days off. The employers have not yet presented a concrete offer. In aviation security, Verdi is demanding, among other things, an improvement in occupational health and safety, 30 days' vacation and additional leave for shift work.
In addition to Berlin, the airports in Hanover, Bremen, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Cologne/Bonn, Leipzig/Halle, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich are also affected by the warning strikes. At Weeze Airport near Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport, only employees in the aviation security sector have been called out on strike. According to an initial estimate by the airport association ADV, air traffic will come to a standstill in large parts of Germany: According to this, more than 3,400 flights are expected to be canceled due to the strike in the public sector and ground handling services alone, and around 510,000 passengers will not be able to travel as planned.