Cabin crew staff started a series of strikes at the airline’s core Lufthansa brand last Friday to fight for an improved pension offer for employees.
Advertisement
Cancelled flights appear on a board in a terminal at the airport as flight attendants of Lufthansa airline went on strike for the fifth day in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, November 11, 2015. The UFO union welcomed the ruling on its website, calling for the strike to continue from 0300 GMT today until 2300 GMT on Friday across all flights from Germany’s biggest airport, Frankfurt, along with Munich and Dusseldorf.
Lufthansa has condenned the strikes as counter-productive.
The court dismissed the airline’s argument that the union’s reasons for striking were “too vague” and unjustified under German labour law.
Lufthansa, which says it needs to cut costs in order to compete with budget rivals and leaner Gulf carriers, has said it is open to mediation, provided the union calls off the strikes.
Another court later Wednesday also approved strikes through Friday for Duesseldorf airport, even though a day earlier, the same court had found Tuesday’s stoppage to be illegal.
The union is demanding that the current system of early retirement provisions remain unchanged, but Lufthansa has argued that those measures are too expensive. Court spokeswoman Anke Salchow said the decision only applied on Tuesday.
“Flights from Lufthansa Group airlines Lufthansa CityLine, Germanwings, Eurowings, Air Dolomiti, Austrian Airlines, SWISS and Brussels Airlines are not affected by the strike actions and will therefore operate as planned”.
Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr said on Wednesday that he would not back down from his demand that striking members of the Ufo cabin crew union come back to work before the two sides resume negotiations.
Advertisement
The cabin crew walkout is separate from another tussle between management and pilots over the company’s plans to change the early retirement arrangements for pilots. Additionally, the airline has said that passengers on affected flights can rebook free of charge.
