Lufthansa support staff working at airports in Leipzig and Dresden will go on strike ahead of Thursday’s Germany Unity Day and the school holidays. Here’s what passengers need to know.

Strikes scheduled at Leipzig and Dresden airports

Ver.di has announced that Lufthansa employees at Airport Services Leipzig (ASL) and Airport Services Dresden (ASD) will carry out an all-day warning strike (Warnstreik) on October 2, 2024.

As a result, “Lufthansa Group flights to and from these airports are expected to be cancelled," the airline said. 

Airlines in the Lufthansa Group include Lufthansa, Eurowings, Discover Airlines, SWISS and Edelweiss Air, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Lufthansa Cargo.

Lufthansa has told passengers that if their flight has been cancelled, the airline “will book you free of charge and usually automatically to another flight and inform you via your mobile phone".

Passengers planning to fly to or from Leipzig and Dresden have been advised to check their flight status with the relevant Lufthansa Group airline.

The strike announcement comes just as many are preparing for a long weekend beginning with the German Unity Day on October 3 and schoolchildren in Saxony begin their autumn holidays, on October 7.

Why are Lufthansa staff striking this week?

Ver.di is currently in wage negotiations with Lufthansa on behalf of the airline’s employees at ASL and ASD. On September 30, the airline announced that it would close down ASL and ASD, while ver.di said an agreement had not been reached in the second round of negotiations.

Since mid-June, ver.di has been demanding employees receive a pay rise of 850 euros, in line with the pay scale and with an inflation bonus of 3.000 euros for ver.di members.

The union is demanding such a large raise because Lufthansa employees in Leipzig and Dresden earn around 1.000 euros less per month than their counterpart colleagues in Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich, despite longer working hours, and have “poorer bonus arrangements”.

In spring 2024, when ver.di won striking ground staff a pay deal with Lufthansa, the airline announced that there would finally be equal working conditions in eastern and western German federal states. 

Ver.di has accused the airline of not having implemented these changes, while “blackmailing” and “dividing” employees by announcing it will shut down ASL and ASD during ongoing wage negotiations.

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