Budget carrier easyJet faces two separate cabin-crew strike waves that could wipe out up to 500 flights, the airline confirmed to BILD on 23 September. The Portuguese union SNPVAC has called five-day stoppages for 2–6 October and again for 19–23 December, periods that coincide with German school holidays and peak Christmas travel. EasyJet’s only year-round Germany–Portugal routes – Berlin-Brandenburg (BER) to Porto and Funchal – are squarely in the firing line. While exact cancellations have not yet been published, the carrier has already begun pre-emptively trimming capacity between Lisbon and other EU capitals. For German travellers the timing could hardly be worse: the first strike overlaps with half-term breaks in Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, traditionally strong outbound markets for late-sun city breaks. EasyJet told reporters it "observes the situation closely" and will notify passengers directly, but union sources insist rosters are being finalised, suggesting that a first list of scrubbed flights will appear by 28 September. In a separate but related dispute, French easyJet pilots represented by SNPL have announced 24–25 September walk-outs over fatigue management, threatening onward connections through Paris and Lyon. For mobility managers the risk calculus is clear: tickets on BER-Portugal legs between 1–7 October now carry high disruption probability. Companies with time-critical travel should consider rerouting via Frankfurt, Munich or Lufthansa’s new Condor code-share to Lisbon. The strikes also underline a wider trend: after a quiet 2025, European low-cost carriers are again facing labour unrest as inflation-adjusted wage expectations rise. Under EU261 rules, airlines must rebook or refund passengers, but hotel and meeting costs are not automatically covered if cancellation notice exceeds 14 days. Travel-policy owners may therefore wish to remind staff to choose fully flexible fares or maintain virtual-attendance options for Iberian meetings scheduled during the strike windows.
Source: BILD
