Airport strikers up the pressure
February 20, 2012
A strike by ground staff at Europe's third-largest airport will continue until Friday evening, the GdF air traffic controllers’ union said early Tuesday.
"We would like to increase the pressure," GdF spokesman Matthias Mass told German news agency dpa.
The strike over pay began at 5 a.m. on Monday morning when around 200 workers at Frankfurt Airport downed tools. The union condemned the airport operator, Fraport, accusing it of "intransigence." Initially only planned as a 24-hour walkout, it had already been extended until 5 a.m. Wednesday morning.
On Monday evening, Fraport said the disruption had been minimized, with only 240 out of 1,250 flights cancelled.
"Despite the strike ... activity at Frankfurt airport is functioning at a good level of punctuality," the company said in a statement, adding that it expected similarly "good figures" for the 1,200 planned flights on Tuesday.
No long-haul flights affected
The strike follows a similar 48-hour walkout staged on Thursday and Friday last week that led to hundreds of flight cancellations.
Germany's flag carrier, Lufthansa said that no long-haul flights had been affected, with priority given to long-distance services.
The GdF and Fraport are locked in a wage dispute for staff who, among other tasks, help direct planes in and out of their parking spots. The union says that the opening of a fourth runway at Frankfurt airport last October has drastically increased workload. Fraport, meanwhile, says that the union is asking for excessive pay hikes of up to 50 percent.
The German government has so far declined to intervene, saying that the strike was a contractual issue between the airport and its staff. Frankfurt airport is the third busiest in Europe, after London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
ccp, rc/pfd (AFP, dpa, Reuters)