Anyone who is planning on travelling to or from Germany in the next few days may wish to reconsider their plans.
Several transport unions have announced plans to paralyse the country’s transport networks this coming Monday, March 27.
AIRPORTS
No flights will operate from Munich Airport for two days, Sunday 26/03 and Monday 27/03. Disruption is likely to continue into Tuesday.
Frankfurt Airport will be closed to all regular flights on Monday and it is reasonable to expect sone cancellations starting on Sunday evening.
Stuttgart and Bremen airports have also announced they will be closing all day Monday, with Düsseldorf Airport warning of severe disruption “in the unlikely event” that your flight is actually running.
LONG DISTANCE TRAINS
Deutsche Bahn has announced that there will be no long distance trains running on Monday throughout Germany.
Disruption is expected to begin on Sunday evening and run into Tuesday as trains and crew will be out of position.
REGIONAL TRAINS
Deutsche Bahn is expected to run very few regional trains on Monday and travellers can count themselves very lucky if any services are operating on their intended route.
LOCAL TRANSPORT
Unions in seven of Germany’s 16 federal states are involved in strike action, affecting services in Bavaria, Baden Württemberg, Saxony, Lower Saxony, Nordrhein-Westphalia, Rheinland-Palatine and Hesse.
CONCLUSION
This is the largest scale transport strike action in Germany for some decades and will cause extreme disruption to transport networks.
Travellers should expect to be unable to reach their destinations using flights or trains.
Flixbus services may be an alternative, but are likely to be very heavily in demand. I tried several searches for connections between several major German cities and found that many are already showing “almost full”.
My recommendation is that if you absolutely must travel in Germany on Monday, a rental car is going to be the most reliable option.
In all honesty, however, if you are in a position to postpone or cancel your visit, or to choose an alternative destination, my advise is to do so.
If you have any questions or further information on the upcoming strike action in Germany, please visit the Germany forum.
