Lufthansa walkout grounds nearly 800 flights, disrupting 100,000 passengers
A large-scale strike by pilots and flight attendants have forced Lufthansa to cancel close to 800 flights, disrupting travel for up to 100,000 passengers and affecting major international events in Germany.
The German aviation group was forced to cancel hundreds of its flights on Thursday after pilots and flight attendants walked out at the European country’s largest airline, which has long struggled to reduce costs at its core brand.
The company said in a statement that close to 800 flights had been cancelled, disrupting the travel plans of about 100,000 passengers.
This “affects our passengers extremely harshly and disproportionately,” Lufthansa said, adding that it expects a return to its normal schedule on Friday.
The German airport association ADV estimated over 460 flights would be cancelled, affecting nearly 70,000 passengers, as departure boards at Frankfurt and Munich, Lufthansa’s main hubs, showed most flights - including international services - grounded for the day.
Lufthansa said it would try to rebook passengers on its own or partner airlines before resuming normal operations on Friday.
The strike, organized by pilots’ union VC and flight attendants’ union UFO, coincided with the start of the Berlinale film festival in Berlin and the upcoming Munich Security Conference.
Pilots, in a dispute with Lufthansa’s core airline and cargo division over pensions, declared readiness to strike after last year’s vote authorizing industrial action for better retirement benefits.
Although talks have resumed, they remain intermittent and inconclusive, with Lufthansa - which calls its core airline a “problem child” - saying it has no financial leeway to meet the demands.
Separately, the UFO union called on flight attendants at Lufthansa’s CityLine subsidiary to strike over plans to shut down its flight operations and over “the employer's continued refusal to negotiate a collective social plan.”
“The simultaneous industrial action by pilots is a coincidence, but one that is welcome,” said UFO union representative Harry Jaeger, adding, “We want to annoy management, not passengers.”
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