(EPA/Marius Becker)
By Julie Johnsson |
Lufthansa pilots have suspended their strike, which was slated to last through Thursday, and are headed back to the bargaining table with management.
The strike is one of several job actions that could make European vacations a nightmare over the next month. Paris air traffic controllers plan a four-day work stoppage, beginning Tuesday. British Airways’ cabin crews voted Monday to strike in mid-March.
Lufthansa pilots walked off the job at 5:01, a.m., CST, Monday to
protest outsourcing of flying by the German carrier. But after a
two-hour court hearing Monday afternoon, both sides agreed to further
talks. Striking Pilots were slated to report to work at 5 p.m., CST.
However, Chicago passengers headed to or from Germany on Monday evening
and Tuesday will still encounter cancellations as the carrier restores
its service, Lufthansa cautioned.
Lufthansa had cancelled about two-thirds of its scheduled flights for
the four-day strike, including many bound for the U.S. About 10,000
passengers of Lufthansa and its Germanwings subsidiary were stranded by
the strike Monday, including customers of United Airlines, which sells
seats on some Lufthansa flights through a practice known as
code-sharing.
“The parties agreed in front of the court that the strike is to be
suspended through the 8th of March,” said Lufthansa spokesman Andreas
Bartels, adding the 4,000 pilots will return to work Tuesday though it
would take some time for normal operations to resume.
“They’re going to go back to work tomorrow (Tuesday),” he said. “I can’t
say when we are back to normal operations. It takes a lot of time.”
Lufthansa operates two flights per day from Chicago’s O’Hare
International Airport to Frankfurt and Munich, and five flights per week
to Dusseldorf.
But as a result of the strike, the carrier only plans to operate one
Chicago-Frankfurt flight on Monday, LH 431, and one Chicago-Munich
flight, LH 435. Lufthansa cancelled all of its Tuesday flights from
Chicago.
Those schedules will remain in effect, said Lufthansa spokeswoman
Jennifer Janzen, and passengers who have rebooked travel on other
airlines should proceed with those arrangements.
Passengers who are scheduled to travel on Feb. 24-25 are advised to
check lufthansa.com throughout the day tomorrow for updates to the
schedule. Lufthansa expects its operations to return to normal by
Friday.
However, the cancellations don’t affect tickets sold by Lufthansa for
flights operated by United. Travelers whose Lufthansa flights are
cancelled can try to rebook on United, free of charge, by calling
1-800-645-3880. Lufthansa also provides detailed updates of its flight
cancellations on Lufthansa.com.
Also Monday, five unions representing French air traffic controllers
announced a four-day strike of their own starting Tuesday that is
forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights at Paris’ Charles de
Gaulle and Orly airports. France’s DGAC aviation authority ordered
airlines to cancel 50 percent of the flights at Orly and 25 percent of
the flights at Charles de Gaulle.
French carrier Air France said it would maintain all of its long-haul
flights during the strike, with the protest movement affecting only its
routes within France and Europe.
British Airways PLC, meanwhile, faced a renewed threat of cabin crew
strikes, after the United union announced Monday that most of its
members had voted in favor of a walkout.
And Eurostar — the main train alternative to planes between
Paris, Brussels and London — experienced yet another
embarrassing train failure.
A Eurostar Paris-to London train inexplicably broke down in southern
England late Sunday, plunging more than 700 passengers into darkness and
forcing them to climb down ladders onto the track to a replacement
train. They arrived in London about 2:30 a.m., local time (8:30 p.m. CST
Sunday), more than four hours late.
With the Associated Press.
