Frankfurt airport to be closed for departing passengers during strike
Frankfurt Airport will be closed to departing passengers on Thursday due to a strike by security staff, a spokesman for the operator Fraport said on Wednesday.
The operator recommends that passengers contact their airlines and said they should not travel to the airport under any circumstances.
The impact on the flight schedule remained initially unclear. So far, planes are still expected to land and passengers on incoming flights should be able to change at Frankfurt, Germany's largest airport.
Originally, 1,170 departures and arrivals with around 160,000 passengers on board were planned for Thursday. Which connections are cancelled is a matter for the respective airline, an airport spokesman said.
A total of 650 of those flights had already been cancelled by Wednesday noon.
Trade union verdi has called on ground staff at Germany's national carrier Lufthansa to strike from Wednesday evening in a current wage dispute for around 25,000 employees. On Tuesday, security staff at Frankfurt and Hamburg airport were asked to join Thursday's action.
The workers are employed by private companies that check passengers, staff and luggage at the entrances to the security area on behalf of the Federal Police.
The strike by Lufthansa ground staff begins on Wednesday evening and is scheduled to continue until Saturday morning at 7:10 am (0610 GMT).
Passenger flights are expected to be mainly affected on Thursday and Friday, but so far Lufthansa has not amended its schedule to reflect the additional strikes at Frankfurt and Hamburg airports. Even before security staff there were called on to join the action, the airline was expecting massive flight cancellations, especially at its hubs in Frankfurt and Munich.
Munich Airport is to remain open on Thursday and Friday, but is expecting many flight cancellations, a Lufthansa spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
"Only 10 to 20% of the flight schedule will take place on both strike days,"she said. Around 1,000 flights were originally planned in Munich for the entire period of the strikes.
All 141 departures originally scheduled from Hamburg airport for Thursday were already cancelled by Tuesday evening. Some planes would depart without passangers, a spokesman said, to avoid further distruption to the flight schedule.
The airport expects many passangers to rebook for Friday, with flights expected to be very busy.
The airport staff action comes as train drivers at national rail operator Deutsche Bahn have also announced plans for renewed strikes.
The strike in passenger transport is to start on Thursday at 2 am (0100 GMT) and is to last for 35 hours, the head of Germany's train drivers' union GDL, Claus Weselsky, announced on Monday.
In the rail freight sector, the strike is set to begin on Wednesday at 6 pm.
