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Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Problems with travel to Frankfurt Book Fair

Are baggage-handlers' strikes and standdowns universal?


After our troubles with the baggage-handlers in Australia (it took a week for our luggage to follow us home), I was surprised to read that those attending the Frankfurt Book Fair this week may face the same problem.

On Monday afternoon, over 1,200 ground handling staff at Frankfurt will be attending stopwork meetings.  Apparently, the EU is proposing a plan to increase competition among handlers, which seems crazy to me.  What's the aim?  To cut costs?  It certainly portends difficulties for passengers, in an era when efficient baggage-handling is not part of each airline's own image.

Anyway, Lufthansa (one of the nicest airlines I have ever flown with) said that they are "actively preparing for it, and hope to limit the effect on passengers as much as possible."  Delays, however, are inevitable.

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