Strike disrupts flights at Frankfurt airport

Feb 16, 2012, 16:02 GMT

Frankfurt - Ground controllers at Frankfurt airport, who direct planes in and out of parking spaces, walked off the job for a seven-hour strike Thursday, disrupting flights all over Europe.

The airline Lufthansa cancelled 50 landings and 50 takeoffs at Europe's third-biggest airport to minimize the strike's impact.

As the strike proceeded, the airport said a total of 150 movements, covering all airlines, had to be cancelled.

During the seven hours affected by Thursday's strike, 526 takeoffs and landings had been scheduled.

Only 16 of the 200 ground controllers reported to work. Former ground controllers in management were ordered back to their old jobs so that a skeleton service continued.

The air traffic control labour union said there would be a 14-hour follow-up strike Friday by the 200 controllers.

Passengers voiced exasperation at the union.

'What annoys me is they only announced it the previous day,' said a London-bound traveller, Viktoria Busse.

Rival labour groups at the airport voiced anger at the controllers' union, portraying it as greedy. Gerold Schaub, secretary of the services union Verdi, said a tiny group were trying to enrich themselves at the expense of others.

He said other labour groups at the airport, where tens of thousands work, had agreed to go without 24 million euros (31 million dollars) in raises to save jobs, and the controllers were now trying to seize 8 million euros of those savings for themselves.

A strike on Friday would affect 1,082 scheduled movements.