Which of these airlines cancelled over a 1000 flights recently due to ground staff walkout?
British Airways
Lufthansa
Emirates
Qatar Airways
Answer: Lufthansa
In July 2022, Germany’s flagship carrier Lufthansa announced the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights as a one-day walkout was carried out by ground staff. A number of airlines had cancelled thousands of flights earlier due to strikes and staff shortages.
Michael Niggemann, the chief of human resources at Lufthansa, criticized the strike at the time, saying it was an “early escalation after only two days of negotiations in what has so far been a constructive collective bargaining round.”
The cancellation caused hours-long queues at major airports and hampered several holiday plans as people planned their travel after COVID-19-related lockdowns.
In June, Lufthansa had cancelled an additional 2,000 summer flights from Frankfurt and Munich, citing staffing shortages at airports.
“We certainly made mistakes while saving our company and more than 100,000 jobs over the past two years,” Lufthansa Chief Executive Carsten Spohr said in a letter to staff seen by Reuters news agency at the time.
“Did we go too far in cutting costs here and there, under the pressure of the more than 10 billion euros [$10.6bn] in pandemic-related losses? Certainly, that too,” he added.
Airlines around the world carried out lay offs during the COVID-19 during the pandemic to reduce costs.
