· Long haul flights to North America are also affected
· More than 12,000 passengers have to be rebooked
After the works council board invited the employees, who spontaneously would like to take part in the internal assembly earlier than planned to a so-called “framework program”, starting at 05:30, Austrian Airlines had to cancel a further 80 flights at short notice last night and today. Around 150 out of a total of about 380 flights were cancelled from today's flight program. That's about 40 percent of today's flights. Affected by the cancellations are for example flights between Vienna and Amsterdam, Basel, Bologna, Berlin, Belgrad, Brussels, Bucharest, Cairo, Copenhagen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Geneva, Graz, Hamburg, Innsbruck, Kiev, Leipzig, London, Lyon, Milan, Minsk, Moskow, Munich, Paris, Prague, Sofia, Stuttgart, Teheran, Tel Aviv, Warsaw, Venice, Zagreb and Zurich. The flights to Washington and Toronto also had to be canceled. The flight to Newark had to be canceled due to weather conditions (blizzard on the east coast).
Austrian Airlines CEO Kay Kratky: ”The short-term expansion of the combat measures clearly indicates that the union's and the works council's target is a disruption. It is incomprehensible and absolutely unacceptable to us that higher salary demands are carried out on the backs of our customers while competition is intensifying as well. In total, today more than 12,000 passengers are affected by the cancellations. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.”
Customers who have provided a telephone number or e-mail address while booking their flights as well as members of the Miles & More frequent flyer program will be informed automatically via SMS or by e-mail concerning changes in the flight schedule. We kindly ask all other passengers to please check the current status of their flight before leaving for the airport. In case a flight has been cancelled, passengers are asked to inform themselves about their travel route on the Austrian Airlines Website under “My Booking“.
Passengers who have booked their flight through an (online) travel agency, should contact their travel agency.