German airline Lufthansa cancelled more than 800 flights on Monday with more flights expected to be cancelled following industrial action by trade union at four airports.
The Verdi trade union strike, it was gathered, affected Frankfurt, Munich, Cologne and Bremen Airports and it is expected to continue tomorrow (Tuesday).
Daily Trust learnt that the strike also affected the flights to Nigeria which has already been cancelled as of the time of filing this report.
The Lagos and Port Harcourt – bound flights arrived from Germany on Monday but the return flights tonight were cancelled as a result of the strike.
A media consultant to the airline, Hakeem Jimoh confirmed the development in a chat with our correspondent last night, saying passengers had already been informed of the cancellation.
He said, “The flights have already arrived in Lagos and Port Harcourt but they are not leaving tonight (Monday). They were supposed to go back but because of the strike on Tuesday, they would not go back. They are going tomorrow (Tuesday) and they will get there on Wednesday when everything has normalized.
“So the two flights are cancelled today. We have informed all passengers that were supposed to go today. So tomorrow (Tuesday) there is no arrival and the next arrival would be on Wednesday”.
With the strike in the Lufthansa hub, the ground handling services, the support services and also part of the airport fire brigade will be on strike tomorrow between 5:00h and 18:00h.
The airline in a statement extracted on its website said “due to this Verdi strike tomorrow, Lufthansa will have to cancel 800 out of the 1,600 scheduled flights, including 58 long-haul flights. The cancellations will affect about 90,000 passengers. Flight operations are scheduled to resume normal services on Wednesday 11 April 2018”.
The airline group condemned the strike action, saying, “Lufthansa cannot comprehend Verdi’s threat to carry out such a massive strike.
“It is completely unacceptable for the union to impose this conflict on uninvolved passengers. Lufthansa is not a part of this collective bargaining conflict, but unfortunately our customers and our company are being affected by the consequences of this dispute," says Member of the Executive Board for Human Resources and Legal Affairs of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Bettina Volkens.