Ah, spring. The days become longer, the temps get warmer, and, apparently, it’s a great time for airline strikes. Lufthansa pilots just struck for a day and postponed the rest for later. Meanwhile, British Airways is on deck as the French air traffic controllers wreak havoc in their own country. And don’t worry, Alitalia has struck in the last week as well, of course. What the heck is going on here?

With Lufthansa, the pilots aren’t happy so they walked out yesterday. That left the airline canceling about half their daily flights and plenty of passengers stuck going nowhere. Last night, the pilots agreed to suspend their strike until March 8 so they could rejoin talks. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Lufthansa will magically start operating at full speed today. It takes a little while to get everything back into place for a normal operation, so check with the airline if you’re flying.

As for British Airways, well, we’ve talked about this one before. Remember that the BA flight attendants were going to strike over Christmas but then the courts told them to screw off because of some voting irregularities. Well, they’re back and now with a new vote showing 83 percent support, the strike could come with only a week’s notice. At least they’re promising it won’t disrupt Easter flying. Not sure why Christmas was ok but Easter isn’t, but I’m not complaining.

The French air traffic controllers? They’ve been on strike this week and have hurt a lot of the air traffic running through the country. For example, Air France has announced that today it will operate all its long haul flights but only 75 percent of European flights will operate from Paris/de Gaulle with only 50 percent from Orly.

Why do we keep seeing all these strikes? Well it’s more of the same. It’s usually an issue of job retention, outsourcing, and of course, pay. The problem is that the industry today is not what it was 30 years ago when pay was high and so were fares. Some airlines have been able to adapt but none have done so without serious pain for most involved (except of course, those insanely-misguided CEOs who think that taking a big bonus in the face of all this pain is a good idea).

What we’re seeing now, however, is two different types of unions based on how they react. The labor unions that realize that this is unfortunately a necessary change will be in better shape because they can participate in the discussion and work to find ways to help reduce costs with the least amount of pain to their members. Those unions that simply want to strike if they don’t get everything they want, no matter how delusional, will end up watching from the outside as the industry changes without their participation.

As a result, customers end up suffering, of course. If your flight is canceled because of a strike, then I would just cancel and rebook at a later date if you can. If you need to be there, well, you can look at other airlines but they will be bursting at the seams trying to accommodate everyone. Just remember that a strike doesn’t mean the airline shuts down. Most airlines are able to get together enough of a skeleton crew to operate at least some flights, as Lufthansa showed by operating half theirs. But running only half your flights is still a recipe for lots of stuck travelers.

Oh, and Alitalia? Well it’s hardly worth mentioning, but they struck on February 16. Ho, hum. Nothing to see here.

[Original Photo via Steinsky on Wikipedia]

UPDATE 12/17 @ 853a – The strike is off!

If you’re booked on British Airways for the holidays, you might be kicking yourself right now. The cabin crew (a fancy name for flight attendants) overwhelmingly voted yesterday to strike for a dozen days beginning at the end of this month. This is likely to be very painful for travelers if it happens, and the flight attendants certainly aren’t getting any sympathy from me. In fact, they get the coveted Cranky Jackass award instead.

The plan is this. Flight attendants expect to begin striking British Airways on December 22 and go for 12 straight days through January 2. Clearly this was planned in order to wait until the busy Hanukkah travel rush ended, but the flight attendants seem to have forgotten about a slightly more widely celebrated holiday called Christmas. And of course, there’s New Years as well.

So nice of them to do it right over the holidays, huh? Could they really not do this in January? Or maybe cut down from the 12 days? I guess not. The union, Unite, has apparently lived up to its name. More than 90% of the flight attendants united and voted in favor of this. Wow.

I spoke with British Airways and asked how they’re planning to deal with this. Spokesperson Michele Kropf said that since this just happened, plans are still being formed. They have, however, been internally preparing since the strike vote was first announced. The first step was for them to waive change fees during the period. If you’re traveling between December 20 and January 4, you’re able to change without penalty for up to 12 months from now. Of course, you’re probably traveling during that time because it’s the holidays, so you don’t exactly have the flexibility. But at least that option is out there.

Michele told me that they are working on their flight schedules now, but nothing has been canceled as of yet. From what I’ve seen (and this didn’t come from BA), these things generally result in at least a portion of the airline continuing to operate. There are always management crews who can step in to help, and sometimes flight attendants cross the line to work. There probably won’t be many of those in this case. History shows us that short haul flights tend to get canceled more because there are better alternates than long hauls. But I would be shocked if they could run their entire long haul schedule. It just isn’t very likely.

If you’d like to put a face on these people, here’s an interview with Len McCluskey, assistant general secretary of Unite. Watch in amazement as he tries to justify striking at Christmas yet still saying he sympathizes with customers.

What’s this fight about anyway? Oh, it’s the usual. BA has been absolutely hemorrhaging during this downturn. That’s what happens when you rely hugely on premium traffic. So, CEO Willie Walsh has proposed some pretty serious cuts in numbers and wages. The flight attendants aren’t happy and they’ve started their “United we stand” campaign. No, I swear this has nothing to do with United.

So why strike now? It appears that they think they need to make their point at the busiest time of the year. Unfortunately for them, that is highly unlikely to get them any sort of sympathy. While I know what they’re going through is difficult, striking during the holidays is simply unconscionable to me. While they might have received some sympathy for a strike during off peak times, a strike during the holidays will only hurt their cause in the public eye.

I wish everyone holding a ticket on British Airways this holiday season good luck. Hopefully this gets settled in the next week and we don’t actually see a strike, but you should be mentally prepared for the worst just in case.

[Updated 12/15 @ 417p to reflect that the comments about historical reactions didn't come from BA but were rather my own speculation.]

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