Since 4 in the morning – and in some cases already since last night – a new strike of its ground staff is underway Lufthansa by the trade union Ver.di.

Serious problems are already being identified at the country’s largest airports, with the airline warning that at least 80-90% of scheduled flights will be canceled and more than 100,000 passengers will be affected.

According to Ver.di’s chief negotiator Marvin Resinski, the mobilization is about Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Cologne-Bonn and Stuttgart airportswhere workers in the logistics, baggage and freight transport sectors, as well as those employed in check-in procedures and boarding gates, have been called to strike.

The strike is scheduled to end at 7:10am tomorrow.

The union, which represents about 25,000 workers in the sector, expressed its displeasure with the way negotiations with Lufthansa have gone, as it said employers are proposing lower increases compared to other branches of the group, while they dispute the payment of “compensation loss of income” for the period of the pandemic.

“While the group is giving pilots on salaries of up to 270,000 a year even double-digit raises, ground workers, who are often only paid the basic wage of €13/hour, are not even compensated for their losses in previous years and for inflation,” Mr. Kresinski said, adding that Ver.di is demanding a pay rise of 12.5%, or at least 500 euros/month, and a one-off “inflation compensation” of 3,000 euros.

Traffic at the airports is not expected to fully clear before Wednesday afternoon.