Item 1 of 6 Workers hold a banner which reads "We are worth it" during a strike, after German trade union Verdi called on workers at Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Dortmund, Hanover and Bremen airports to go on a 24-hour strike, in Frankfurt, Germany February 17, 2023. REUTERS/Heiko Becker
[1/6]Workers hold a banner which reads "We are worth it" during a strike, after German trade union Verdi called on workers at Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Dortmund, Hanover and Bremen airports to go on a 24-hour strike, in Frankfurt, Germany February 17, 2023. REUTERS/Heiko Becker Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
BERLIN, Feb 17 (Reuters) - A 24-hour strike at seven German airports, including Frankfurt and Munich, was set to affect nearly 300,000 passengers on Friday, as unionised workers pressed for higher wages and threatened a summer of "chaos" if their demands were not met.
In an early sign of the disruption, Romania's foreign minister, unable to board a cancelled flight, will be forced to fly to Austria and then make the more than four-hour drive to Munich, a Romanian embassy official said.
It is the latest in a series of strikes and protests that have hit major European economies, including France, Britain and Spain, as higher food and energy prices knocked incomes and living standards following the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Around 295,000 passengers are affected by the cancellation of some 2,340 flights at Bremen, Dortmund, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich and Stuttgart airports, according to the ADV airports association.
"We really haven't had such an escalation through strike action," ADV's Ralph Beisel told broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk. "When we look at the airport terminals this morning, it reminds us more of the worst days of the coronavirus and less of a warning strike."
German trade union Verdi announced the strike on Wednesday after it said collective bargaining efforts for ground service staff, public sector officials and aviation security workers had made little progress.
The union has pressed for a 10.5% wage increase, or at least 500 euros a month.
"If nothing is done about pay now, we will all be in for another chaotic summer," Verdi Deputy Chair Christine Behle told Inforadio on Friday. "It's about sending a really strong signal."
Among the airlines affected, Lufthansa(LHAG.DE), opens new tab said it had been forced to cancel more than 1,300 flights and suspend operations at the hub airports Frankfurt and Munich on Friday.
The carrier declined to give an estimate of the cost of the strike but has on previous occasions said such action costs it 10-15 million euros a day.
The head of Verdi, Frank Werneke, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper that strike action could expand to hospitals and garbage collection.
Authorities have managed to contain a fire at Russia's Tuapse oil refinery that broke out after a Ukrainian drone attack, officials in the Krasnodar region said.
China will allow local government authorities to buy some homes at "reasonable" prices to provide affordable housing, Vice Premier He Lifeng told an online meeting on housing policy on Friday, the official news agency, Xinhua, said.
Authorities have managed to contain a fire at Russia's Tuapse oil refinery that broke out after a Ukrainian drone attack, officials in the Krasnodar region said.
Kenyan lawyers and their opposition party have asked a court to hold the government in contempt for a planned police deployment to Haiti, their filing to the court showed.