Following the pilots' union announcement of a one-day strike, Germany's Lufthansa airline said it will have to cancel 800 flights on Friday.
Berlin: Following the pilots’ union announcement of a one-day strike, Germany’s Lufthansa airline said it will have to cancel about 800 flights on Friday. It would affect 130,000 passengers.
The Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union said late on Wednesday that pay talks had failed and Lufthansa pilots would go on a 24-hour strike beginning soon after midnight on Thursday, affecting both passenger and cargo services.
Several flights will also need to be cancelled on Thursday, as per the report by Lufthansa, which also stated that it would affect Frankfurt and Munich airports.
VC has been demanding a 5.5 per cent pay hike this year for its more than 5,000 pilots and automatic inflation compensation thereafter.
“We hope to get back to negotiations as soon as possible,” a Lufthansa spokesperson said on Thursday. “However, we cannot bear the cost increases associated with VC’s demands either,” he added.
Strikes and staff shortages have already caused thousands of flights to be cancelled this summer by airlines including Lufthansa, and they have resulted in hours-long queues at major airports, frustrating holidaymakers keen to travel following COVID-19 lockdowns.
Security workers and ground staff who have threatened Lufthansa over pay.
The airline stated that it was making every effort to minimise the effects of the pilot’s strike on Friday, but it could not completely rule out cancellations or delays of flights over the weekend.
At 0930 GMT, the airline’s stock price was down 3.5 percent.
The human resources executive board member of Lufthansa, Michael Niggermann, criticised the strike as being “incomprehensible” and defended the company’s good and socially balanced offer.
Lufthansa has been offering a total of 900 euros ($901.35) more in basic pay per month in two stages over an 18-month term, as well as an agreement guaranteeing cockpit staff a minimum fleet size.
