Lufthansa Strike

loves2travel2

We are flying Lufthansa from Newark to Cologne on Saturday 12/3. I called Tauck since we booked our flight thru them and they said that the airline is only giving 24 hours of cancellation notice. I am a nervous wreck about this strike. What other airlines are people flying to get to Cologne? I hate starting off this fabulous trip with angst!

British

You will have more luck trying to find flights on your own, there is such a small chance of help in time here on the forum. Find a potential flight and then call Tauck to see if they can help you. My husband has had Lufthansa flights cancelled by stikes several times at this time of year although they usually cancel flights to the US less often than within Europe. Did Tauck not offer any other help? You are surely not the only people on the Tour who are going to be affected. Did you take the Tauck insurance?

[Deleted User]

Just back from Germany (fortunately, on United). The challenge will be that (I think) there aren't a lot of options into Cologne which don't involve Lufthansa, at least for the intra-Europe connection. An alternative to consider is getting a direct into Frankfurt on a US carrier and then take a train to Cologne. There is a train station right at the Frankfurt airport and it'd be a fast, pleasant way to get to Cologne. On 12/4 (assuming you leave on 12/3), there are hourly direct trains which take 56 minutes (!). You can check this site for details. Be sure to select Frankfurt Flughafen (the airport).

https://www.bahn.com/i/view/USA/en/

loves2travel2

Thank you Portolan. That is very helpful information. I love train travel so that's a great Plan B. We did book the air through Tauck and also the insurance. I just spoke with Tauck again and their latest strike information indicates normal operations will be restored before Saturday. The rep I talked with was very informative and reassuring they were closely monitoring the situation. So with fingers crossed, the trip over will be uneventful!

AlanS

It is probably a bit too late for you but for the future, people might also want to look at flying into Dusseldorf - Delta (not KLM codeshare) flies there direct from Atlanta (and to Atlanta if you are on the Northbound trip). It is only a 30 min. train ride (ICE) from Dusseldorf airport to Cologne.