Lufthansa cancels Friday flight from Kyiv to Frankfurt
Germany’s flagship airline Lufthansa has failed in its last-ditch effort to reach agreement on early retirement and pensions with the representatives of cabin crew union UFO, making a general walkout very likely.
The union will provide further details of the strike on…
While UFO had suggested seeking the IGL’s inclusion, it was never a requirement for a deal, Nicoley Baublies, the head of the flight attendants union, said by phone. The strike is affecting Lufthansa’s operations from Frankfurt and Dusseldorf but flights to and from Munich are not affected.
In September, the German pilot union, Vereinigung Cockpit, caused 84 of Lufthansa’s 170 long-haul flights to be cancelled because of a one day strike caused by disputes over pay, pensions, and cost cuts.
Of the cancelled flights, 23 were inter-continental services, Lufthansa said in a statement.
Lufthansa plans to post a revised flight schedule online later in the morning and says subsidiary airlines aren’t affected.
Should Lufthansa management not make concessions, the union will carry out a threat to stage more walkouts until November 13th, it said.
The UFO union earlier this week threatened a weeklong strike starting Friday. The company said it has reserved 2 500 hotel rooms for any stranded passengers.
The carrier is also in talks with its pilots, who have staged over a dozen strikes in 18 months.
Investors appeared unperturbed by the latest stoppage and Lufthansa shares were the biggest gainers on the Frankfurt stock exchange on Friday, adding as much as 3.22 percent by mid-afternoon in a generally softer market.