German airline Lufthansa has cancelled almost all of its scheduled flights for Friday as its pilots carry out industrial action. Around 130,000 passengers on more than 800 flights from the airline’s hubs in Frankfurt and Munich have been affected, transmits MIA.
Passengers were asked not to travel to the airport, but to switch instead to the train or rebook flights on another day. Lufthansa subsidiaries such as Swiss, Austrian, Brussels and Eurowings are not affected by the strike and will be operating as scheduled, the company said. Lufthansa flights departing from outside Germany will also take place, provided the aircraft and crews are already abroad.
The union called the pilots’ strike on Thursday night after collective bargaining negotiations with Lufthansa broke down. Lufthansa has criticised the strike call and called on the union to return to the negotiating table.
According to Lufthansa, the union’s demands would increase personnel costs in the cockpit by 40%, which is described as unreasonable even without taking the financial consequences of the pandemic into account. In its last offer before talks collapsed, Lufthansa proposed a flat increase of €900 ($896) per employee.
Based on a term of 18 months, this would have resulted in an increase of 18% for career starters and 5% for captains in the final grade, Lufthansa said.
