There are widespread flight cancellations at two German airports on February 24, 2025, due to striking employees.
The 24-hour strike at Düsseldorf Airport begins at 2 AM on Monday (February 24) and at Cologne/Bonn Airport at 8:30 PM on Sunday (February 23).
You can access Lufthansa’s page for travel disruptions here.
Note that the security screening personnel are not striking this time, but employees of ground handling companies are.
Here’s the announcement from Eurowings:
Handling staff strikes at Düsseldorf and Cologne/Bonn on February 24th
Cologne, Düsseldorf 22/02/2025
The labor union ver.di has announced a strike by handling staff at the airports in Düsseldorf and Cologne/Bonn on February, 24th. In Cologne/Bonn, the strike will start on Sunday evening.
Due to the strike action, flight operations are expected to be disrupted and flights canceled. This is a strike by airport staff. Eurowings is not a collective bargaining partner in this dispute, but – like many other airlines – is affected.
Eurowings will inform affected customers and, where possible, offer alternative connections. Travelers are asked to check the status of their flight on eurowings.com or via the app before departure.
Eurowings is doing everything it can to minimize the disruption to passengers. Eurowings assumes that flight operations will be able to resume as normal as far as possible on the following day.
If the striking employees are not directly employed by the airlines, then the EC 261/2004 delay compensation doesn’t apply, but Duty to Care always does for departures ex-EU/EEA and on community carrier flights to EU/EEA also.
Affected passengers can choose to have their tickets refunded or have the airline rebook them to their destination at a later time.
Passengers are eligible for accommodation and meals in case of long delays and cancellations. You may have to arrange these by yourself and later seek reimbursement from the airline.
Conclusion
I had a look at the situation at these airports, and at this point, the majority of the flights scheduled for tomorrow have been canceled.
It might be that a few ground handling company employees are not participating in this work stoppage, and some flights could go out, but I would rather rebook for another day if possible.
Remember to save your receipts for any extra accommodation and meal expenses and submit them to the airline.
