Strike shuts down Hamburg Airport a day earlier than planned
All flights to and from Hamburg Airport have been cancelled in response to a pay strike after services trade union verdi brought the action forward by a day without prior notice, an airport spokeswoman announced on Sunday.
"The airport has been closed for this reason with immediate effect," she said. Of 144 scheduled arrivals and 139 departures on Sunday, only 10 flights had taken place in the early morning, she said.
The strike called by the verdi trade union was originally to have begun with the night shift on Sunday evening and to last up to the end of the late shift on Monday.
Verdi has called its members out on Monday at 13 German airports ahead of the next round of negotiations with federal and regional employers scheduled for mid-March.
Only Hamburg was affected on Sunday. A verdi spokesman said the unannounced strike there was necessary to "to ensure that the effects" of the walk-offs are really felt.
He accused the airport of using strike-breakers to mitigate the effects when strikes were announced in advance, as they were this time. Verdi was aware of the effects on travellers, but employers had now to make an offer, the spokesman said.
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