FRANKFURT (Dispatches) -- Travelers to Europe are largely free from coronavirus restrictions, but they may have to contend with another challenge: navigating disruptions as airline, railway and bus workers walk off the job over low wages and labor conditions.
That was the case on Feb. 17 after a full-day strike by airport employees across Germany halted airline operations countrywide, leading Lufthansa, Germany’s largest airline, to cancel more than 1,300 flights. Some travelers were stranded overnight.
“People were tired and desperate,” said Kate Kennedy, 43, who was transiting through Frankfurt to London with her family when their flight home was canceled. She, her sister, their partners and four young children spent much of the day waiting for standby flights. Lufthansa was not much help, she said, adding, “It was such a shame to end a holiday like that.”
Travel experts are anticipating a busy travel season ahead, with bookings to many European destinations matching, and, in some cases, surpassing prepandemic numbers. But with high inflation continuing to pressure European workers who say they are underpaid and overworked, strikes are expected to hit industries from aviation to rail and urban metros.
“It’s going to be an uncertain environment and one that’s subject to a lot of disruption and inconvenience for travelers,” said Henry Harteveldt, the founder of Atmosphere Research Group, a travel industry research company based in the United States.
Several European countries are expecting widespread industrial action in the coming months.
In Britain, Border Force staff are planning to strike on March 15, along with London Underground train drivers — part of an ongoing wave of rail strikes.
Around 33,000 more civil servants in Britain, including those working for the tax office, have voted to stage a strike on March 15 in a dispute over pay, pensions and job security, the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union said on Tuesday.
They will join 100,000 civil servants across other government departments who were already scheduled to strike on the same day.
“Unless ministers put more money on the table, our strikes will continue to escalate, beginning on March 15,” PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka said in a statement.
In France, where anger over a plan to raise the country’s retirement age is growing, a planned mass strike on March 7 involving workers in several sectors — including the country’s national railway operator, SNCF — is expected to bring many operations to a halt. The disruptions to rail services, unions have signaled, could continue into March.
Air traffic controllers in Spain, deadlocked over pay negotiations, have already walked out on some Mondays in February,

and are planning more actions for Tuesdays in March at some 16 Spanish airports. Swissport, a Zurich-based company that provides ground-handling services for several major airlines, has confirmed that its unionized employees in Spain are also planning to strike this month — a situation that could potentially extend into April. In Italy, baggage handlers, railway staff and some local public transport workers will also be striking throughout March, according to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport.
And Ver.di, one union behind the strike in Germany, has said it is prepared to stage more walkouts if wage negotiations are not resolved.