Let’s discuss the (temporary) good news first. The Lufthansa pilot strike has been suspended until March 8 to give the parties involved more time to “talk.” Of course this all happened after a disastrous day with flight cancellations, not to mention several days with severely interrupted schedules. I’m shocked they couldn’t reach an agreement before the strike period, because for the most part the damage has already been done. So let’s at least hope there’s not another strike after March 8.

Now, on to the bad news — British Airways cabin crew have decided to strike over a pay freeze that British Airways management has requested. No date for the strike has been set yet, but hopefully they’ll be able to come to some agreement.

I realize I’m oversimplifying things here, but can’t we all just get along? To a large extent I see where both sides are coming from with both British Airways and Lufthansa. But at the same time these companies are losing billions of dollars. No one wins with a strike. There’s no (major) harm when it’s just being discussed, but when it gets as far as it did with Lufthansa, no one wins. In this economy these games just can’t be played.