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Frankfurt - Deutsche Lufthansa cancelled at least 876 flights on Wednesday, disrupting travel for about 100 000 people, due to a strike by pilots that will continue through Thursday.
The walkout hits short- and long-haul services operated by Lufthansa’s main brand, affecting about 40% of its usual schedule. Premium services such as Beijing-Frankfurt and Los Angeles-Munich are among those wiped out, according to the company.
The strike was originally scheduled for one day, but was extended by the Vereinigung Cockpit pilots union in retribution over Lufthansa’s effort to halt the walkout in German courts, which failed. The airline said it’s ready to resume negotiations at any time.
The action is the latest in more than two years of clashes over pay, working conditions and moves to turn Lufthansa’s Eurowings unit into a fully fledged discount carrier.
The pilots union is seeking a 20% raise for the period spanning 2012 through 2017, or 3.7% a year. Lufthansa has offered 2.5%, or 0.38% annually, through 2018.
Failed talks
Flights at Eurowings’s Dusseldorf and Hamburg bases were already disrupted Tuesday following a walkout by flight attendants called by the Ver.di labor group. At least 64 services were scrapped.
Lufthansa said it was still working on a flight plan for Thursday and didn’t have numbers on potential cancellations. Customers will be able to adjust their bookings free of charge. The last walkout by pilots in September 2015 was halted after a court ruled it an illegal effort to influence corporate strategy, and more recent talks have been restricted to pay issues.
Vereinigung Cockpit board member Joerg Handwerg said in a release announcing the strike late Monday that the “permanent refusal” of management to grant pilots a reasonable raise is not acceptable. The union said last week that talks had broken down, while dismissing an offer from Lufthansa to bring in an outside arbitrator.
Lufthansa, which has frozen pilot hiring until a new pay accord is agreed, said a strike “is not the right way” for crews to proceed, especially given the offer of mediation. About 5 400 pilots are in the collective bargaining agreement, so the strike call affects only about half of the group’s pilots, it said, with Eurowings, cargo operations and the Swiss and Austrian units unaffected.
Strikes forced Lufthansa to cancel more than 16 000 flights in 2014 and 2015, burdening operating profit by €463m. Shares of the airline closed 1.1% lower on Tuesday in Frankfurt. They’ve declined 13% so far this year.
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