July 26, 2022 - Due to the strike announced by the Lufthansa ground staff for Wednesday, the domestic airline Croatia Airlines was also forced to cancel part of its flights.
The company confirmed to Jutarnji list that a total of 15 flights from Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik to Frankfurt and Munich and vice versa have already been cancelled. The reason for this development is the fact that the employees of Deutschland Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) who work on the reception and dispatch of suitcases will be on strike at those two airports.
"Lufthansa, in fact, carries out shipping operations and accepts passenger luggage at those airports, and as the ground staff announced a strike, we were forced to cancel all our flights to and from those destinations to Croatia," Croatia Airlines confirmed to Jutarnji. The strike has been announced for Wednesday from 3:40 a.m. until 6 a.m. on Thursday.
All passengers on those 15 flights were notified that their flights were cancelled, and we learned that they were mostly transfer passengers who, according to Croatia Airlines, were all taken care of in accordance with European regulations. Lufthansa was forced to cancel a total of around 1300 flights due to a one-day strike that is happening in the middle of the season and in a situation where most airports lack workers anyway. According to information from Lufthansa, the cancellations refer to around 130,000 passengers who were supposed to travel with this carrier, but the case of Croatia Airlines shows that many other air operators will be affected by the strike and this problem will spill over.
Lufthansa's unions are demanding a 9.5 percent wage increase, or a minimum increase of 350 euros per month, for a total of 20,000 workers who they claim will be destroyed by inflation. In the meantime, the company offered them an increase of 150 euros per month this year and another 100 euros in 2023, but the unions rejected the offer, claiming that the increase would not cover inflation, which is 8.2 percent in Germany. Unions and company management have held two rounds of negotiations so far, and the third is scheduled for August 3 and 4.
