149 pilots have called in sick this morning, seriously disrupting Air Berlin’s flight schedule

Like yesterday many Air Berlin pilots have called in sick this morning. The ailing airline struggles to maintain its flight operations. Meanwhile the unions have called the healthy pilots to show up for work. The pilots however are still worried that Air Berlin wants to ditch the more expensive contracts before selling the airline.

Due to the sick pilots Air Berlin was forced to cancel already 32 flights today, at Berlin-Tegel 7 flights got cancelled while at Dusseldorf 5 flights got scrapped. It’s possible that other flights will be cancelled throughout the day.

In an internal letter Thomas Winkelmann, Air Berlin’s CEO informed his staff that 149 captains and first officers reported sick or not fit for flight, “we are facing an operational disaster, like yesterday. This will bring us even closer to the abyss.”

The Air Berlin finance department already calculated the total loss of yesterday’s massive illness: 5,000,000 €