Lufthansa Flights May Be Disrupted As Pilots Plan Another Strike This Week

The union representing Lufthansa’s pilots announced on Tuesday that this week will see another round of strikes over the wage dispute.

The strike for passenger flight pilots will last from Wednesday 00h01 to Thursday 23h59, while the strike for cargo flight pilots will last a day longer, until Friday 23h59, according to the union.

Faced with the prospect of new chaos, Lufthansa’s management announced Tuesday that it would make a “better offer” to the union during urgent talks later that day.

A week ago, the airline was forced to cancel almost all of its flights on Friday due to a pilot walkout, which had an impact on 130,000 passengers.

Earlier Today, the pilot union said that “despite announcements to the contrary, Lufthansa has not yet approached us and has not put forward a new offer”.

“This is absolutely incomprehensible and leads to a further unnecessary escalation of the situation.”

The pilot union is requesting automatic compensation for inflation, a 5.5 per cent wage increase by the end of the year, and changes to its salary grid.

According to Lufthansa, the entire package that Cockpit is requesting would result in a 40% increase in pilot personnel costs, or $900 million.

Collective wage negotiations are anticipated to be tense in the upcoming months across Europe due to the rising inflation rate.

According to data released last week by the federal statistics agency Destatis, German consumer prices increased by 7.9 per cent in the 12 months leading up to August.