German pilots go on strike after weekend railway chaos

Berlin, Oct. 20: Lufthansa pilots launched a strike on Monday, deepening Germany’s travel chaos after train drivers stopped work at the weekend just as school holidays began in much of the country.

The top- selling Bild daily complained that “pingpong strikes are crippling our economy”, Europe’s biggest, as about 10,000 pilots and 20,000 train drivers had “taken hostage” 80 million Germans.

The German Industry Federation charged that the pilots strike, following the “disproportionate” railway stoppage, “harms the entire economy” by impacting logistics, tourism and business travel. The economy ministry said the strikes will certainly “impact some sectors of the economy”, though there was no reason to change the 2014 growth forecast which was lowered this month to 1.2 per cent. Pilots for Lufthansa, Europe’s biggest airline, said they would broaden strike action to long- haul flights on top of a previously announced stoppages on short- and medium- length routes. The industrial action on Monday and Tuesday was expected to affect some 200,000 passengers. Pilots were to stop short and medium- haul flights departing between 1100 GMT Monday and 2159 GMT Tuesday, as well as intercontinental flights scheduled to leave Tuesday between 0400 and 2159 GMT. The strike will not affect Lufthansa subsidiaries Austrian, Swiss and Brussels Airlines or Germanwings, the low- cost carrier whose pilots held a 12- hour strike last week.