Strike chaos at Hamburg Airport: 40,000 passengers affected!

Strike chaos at Hamburg Airport: 40,000 passengers affected!

On Sunday, March 9, 2025, the ver.di union caused a surprise at Hamburg Airport: an early all-day warning strike began with just 30 minutes' notice and led to the complete cessation of flight operations. Instead of on Monday as originally planned, ver.di initiated the strike on Sunday morning, which meant that only around ten flights out of a total of 144 arrivals and 139 departures could be carried out before the entire operation was brought to a standstill. Flights to Vienna, Salzburg, Graz and Innsbruck were also significantly affected, causing a total of around 40,000 passengers to experience difficulties 5min.at reported.

The reason for this shocking strike lies in the collective bargaining dispute with the federal and local governments. Union secretary Lars Stubbe explained that the early strike was necessary to increase pressure on employers, as early announcements often lead to countermeasures. The demands include a wage increase of eight percent, at least 350 euros more per month, surcharges for stressful working hours and additional days off. However, these urgent demands were rejected by the employers as not being able to be financed. In view of the situation, the union is planning further all-day warning strikes at 13 German airports, which is expected to result in more than 3,400 flight cancellations and the disruption of around 510,000 passengers MDR reported.

On Monday, the warning strike will begin at midnight and last until 11:59 p.m., with around 23,000 ground transport service workers stopping their work. These massive restrictions not only affect Hamburg, but also important airports such as Leipzig-Halle, Berlin Brandenburg, Frankfurt/Main and many others. Industry representatives, such as the general manager of the air transport association BDL, Joachim Lang, were critical of the strikes and described them as disproportionate, as entire sectors of transport are currently being paralyzed, while some parties involved, such as restaurants and retailers, are not even collective bargaining partners.