Hundreds of Lufthansa planes stayed on the ground on Thursday amid an all-day strike by pilots and flight attendants.
The strike comes as the airline’s efforts to cut costs and become more profitable have put it in conflict with unions.
The company said the industrial action caused almost 800 flights to be canceled, affecting about 100,000 passengers.
What should Lufthansa customers expect?
On its website, Lufthansa has said passengers should first ascertain the status of their flight before heading to an airport.
The airline said it would try to rebook affected passengers on flights operated by the group’s other airlines or partner airlines.
The Lufthansa group also includes airlines such as Swiss, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines.
The company said flight bookings could also be changed into train tickets with the national rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, at no extra cost.
Flights were not expected to return to normal until Friday, the company said.
Why do unions say the Lufthansa strike is necessary?
The some 4,800 pilots working at Lufthansa and its freight arm, Lufthansa Cargo, are seeking to pressure their employers into paying higher contributions to their retirement benefits.
A clear majority of members of the German pilots’ union VC declared their readiness to strike in a vote last year.
The president of VC, Andreas Pinheiro, said that “we would very much have liked to avoid an escalation” and that the union had always been ready to talk.
“That this strike is taking place nonetheless is the fault of the employer,” he said.
The UFO union of flight attendants has separately called on its members at Lufthansa’s short-haul carrier CityLine to strike over the planned shutdown of its flight operations and what it calls “the employer’s continued refusal to negotiate a collective social plan.”
The UFO strike, affecting some 20,000 staff, is occurring without a prior vote on the matter.
Talks between the unions and the company on the conflicts have been intermittent and without result.
Lufthansa has seen considerable industrial trouble in the past yearsImage: Michaela Stache/AFP
What has Lufthansa said?
The human resources head at Lufthansa, Michael Niggemann, said on Wednesday that the “escalation is completely unnecessary,” saying that union demands were excessive and that only talks could resolve the conflicts.
He said the airline’s core brand “simply has no financial leeway” to cope with the additional costs.
Lufthansa’s core airline went into the red in 2024 and initiated a recovery program called “Turnaround” in a bid to return to profitability.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the human resources head at Lufthansa, Michael Niggemann. This has now been corrected. We apologize for the error.
Edited by: Sean Sinico
