Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry warns on impact of three-day Germanwings strike
Bulgaria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a warning to travellers because of a three-day strike by Germany’s cabin crew union UFO that will affect Lufthansa subsidiary Germanwings from December 30 to midnight on January 1.
The Foreign Ministry said that Lufthansa flights and those by other subsidiaries would not be affected by the strike but according to UFO, it is likely that on January 2 or even earlier, the strike would spread to other carriers in the Lufthansa group.
“Travellers are urged to prepare for flight delays or, if possible, to change flights to another company,” Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry said.
It called on Bulgarian citizens who were booked to travel with Germanwings during the strike period or who intended to use the services of an air carrier from the Lufthansa Group from January 2 onwards to stay informed regarding delays or cancellations.
In case of need, Bulgarian citizens could contact the consular service at the embassy in Berlin, the consulate-general in Munich, or the consulate-general in Frankfurt, the ministry said.
A statement on the eurowings.com website said that the UFO strike was “unfounded and incomprehensible to us”.
“We are doing everything to offer our passengers a normal flight schedule between Christmas and New Year.”
Eurowings said that it wanted to minimise the impact on its passengers and has published the actual special flight schedule for the strike period. “It should be noted that only 30 of the approximately 140 Eurowings aircraft are operated by Germanwings”.
“Eurowings regrets the impact of the UFO strike on its customers and will continue to do everything possible to minimize the impact.
“We ask all passengers who have planned a Eurowings flight within the strike period to regularly check the current status of their flight before travelling to the airport at www.eurowings.com or via the Eurowings Customer App,” the statement said.
(Photo: flickr.com/BriYYZ)
