Tuesday 4 September 2012

Lufthansa Says 190 Flights Hit By Strike


Lufthansa said it would cancel 190 flights at its main hub, Frankfurt airport, on Tuesday due to a second round of strikes by cabin crew in a row over pay and conditions.

Lufthansa said only a handful of long-haul flights would be impacted, while around half of short and medium-haul flights were cancelled.

The airline initially expected only 64 cancellations in the first eight-hour strike on Friday but ended up scrapping almost 200 flights, leaving 26,000 passengers stranded and costing it millions of euros.

The German cabin crew union, UFO, said its workers would strike in Frankfurt from 0400-1200 GMT and in Berlin's Tegel airport from 0300-1100 GMT.
This morning it was calling on its members working at Lufthansa to go on strike in Munich from 1100-2000 GMT.

Lufthansa did not give an estimate for how many flights would be affected in Berlin and Munich.

The union wants a 5 percent pay increase and guarantees against outsourcing and the use of temporary workers.

Lufthansa is in the midst of a EUR€1.5 billion (USD$1.9 billion) cost-cutting drive to combat rising fuel costs and competition from low-cost and Gulf carriers.

The airline has said it will not improve its offer to raise pay by 3.5 percent in exchange for longer hours.

The union had said it would widen strike action unless Lufthansa improved its offer.

(Reuters)

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