This archive report was first published on 2 September 2019.
On Monday, September 2, 2019, KLM, the Dutch national carrier, was forced to cancel 28 round-trip flights across Europe due to a two-hour strike by ground staff demanding higher wages.
The strike, which lasted from 8:00 am to 10:00 am (0600 GMT to 0800 GMT), was called by the FNV, the largest Dutch union federation, in an effort to secure a four percent increase for its 15,000 ground staff members.
According to Manel Vrijenhoek, an airline spokeswoman, the decision to cancel the flights was made after the ground crew stopped work, causing a delay of about half-an-hour in operations.
"We announced yesterday that 11 return flights will be preventively cancelled with a decision to scrap another 17 today," Vrijenhoek told AFP.
"Our operations in the meantime have started up again with a delay of about half-an-hour," she said.
The FNV had been negotiating with KLM over wages, with the airline offering a two percent increase over the next three years, plus three percent in the first year. However, the union deemed this offer unacceptable.
"It's no good. Therefore we are calling a work stoppage," Joost van Doesburg, the FNV campaign leader, said in a statement.
"If KLM retains its position after the strike, new labour actions cannot be excluded," he added.
Notably, this strike is the second major disruption to KLM's operations in recent months, following a strike by public transport workers in May that forced dozens of flights to be cancelled at Schiphol, one of Europe's busiest hubs.
