Strike by Lufthansa pilots grounds 2,000 flights
frankfurt — Strikes at Deutsche Lufthansa will wipe out almost 2,000 flights after a failed bid to have a pilot walkout over pay declared illegal led a union to extend it by 24 hours.
The German carrier will scrap 912 flights scheduled for Thursday on top of at least 876 lost on Wednesday, disrupting travel for a total of 215,000 people, it said.
Lufthansa’s long-running pilot dispute reached new levels of bitterness after the Vereinigung Cockpit union defeated an application to have the strike blocked at Frankfurt labor court late Tuesday, and retaliated by lengthening the action. The company described the step as “incomprehensible” and said it would inflict “extensive damage” on its business.
The walkouts affect both shortand long-haul services operated by Lufthansa’s main brand, eliminating about 40 per cent of the usual schedule. Premium flights such as Beijing-Frankfurt, Los AngelesMunich and 10 out of 12 services from Frankfurt to London Heathrow are among those scrapped.
While Lufthansa said it’s ready to resume negotiations at any time and repeated an offer of outside arbitration, Vereinigung Cockpit is unwilling to return to talks without an improved pay proposal. The union is seeking a 20 per cent raise for the period spanning 2012 through 2017, or 3.7 per cent a year. Lufthansa has offered 2.5 per cent, or 0.38 per cent annually, through 2018.
About 5,400 Lufthansa pilots, or about half the total, are covered by a collective labor agreement and therefore potentially on strike, excluding those at the carrier’s cargo unit. Flights at the group’s Swiss and Austrian divisions and the Eurowings discount brand are also operating normally.
The action is the latest in more than two years of clashes over pay, working conditions and Lufthansa’s moves to turn Eurowings into a fully fledged low-cost carrier. The company’s recourse to legal action proved incendiary given that a similar strategy undermined the last pilot strike in 2015, with the walkout, which was linked to the Eurowings transformation, rejected as an illegal effort to influence corporate strategy. — Bloomberg