Latest Travel Nightmare Involves Lufthansa, Germany

Wednesday was a really bad day to be booked on a Lufthansa flight in or out of Germany. The New York Times reports that roughly 3,000 "nonflying" employees walked off the job at 3:45am Wednesday, with plans to protest for higher wages until 6am Thursday. The resulting lack of ground services workers and airport check-in agents led to "virtually all" of the airline's flights to and from Frankfurt and Munich—the airline's main German hubs, per Bloomberg—being canceled Wednesday, a move that impacted 130,000 travelers.

The airline said it was trying to rebook customers but was frank about the possibility of doing so: "The capacities available for this are very limited." The Times notes the customer service agents who assist with rebooking were also striking in Germany. Afar reports the strike was announced Monday. The union Ver.di is seeking for a 9.5% wage bump for about 20,000 ground staff, citing persistent staff shortages, inflation, and a three-year wage freeze. A rep for Lufthansa says the workers had been offered "very substantial pay increases over the next 12 months"; no specifics were given. (More Lufthansa stories.)