The walkout comes after airlines, which are reeling from soaring fuel prices and airspace closures due to the war in Ukraine, had to cancel hundreds of flights to and from German airports due to strikes last week Monday and Tuesday.

Labour union Verdi called the strike for today at Frankfurt, Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Hanover, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf and Cologne/Bonn airports.

Dusseldorf airport said airlines had cancelled 140 out of a planned roughly 260 flights to and from the western German city for today. At Cologne/Bonn, 73 out of 123 flights have been cancelled.

Verdi is demanding that employers raise the wages of the around 25,000 airport security employees in Germany by at least €1 an hour for the next 12 months and that staff in different parts of the country earn the same.

BDLS, the association of aviation safety companies, has said that all of Verdi’s demands combined amounted to pay increases of up to 40% and were “utopian”.

A next round of wage talks has been scheduled for Thursday.