German airline Lufthansa sought a court order Tuesday to halt a crippling week-long strike by cabin staff, as the trade union said it would expand its industrial action to include all flights.
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The strike has hit Germany’s biggest airport of Frankfurt as well as Duesseldorf and the southern transit hub of Munich.
The airline has also been in dispute with its pilots, who have gone on strike several times in the past 18 months over the airline’s early retirement packages – an issue separate to the current dispute.
As things stood, the union was to strike long-haul and local flights Wednesday through Friday at the three airports. “On the other hand, management clearly said they will not back down and are willing to shrink the main brand if costs won’t come down”.
In response to UFO’s latest strike schedule, Lufthansa has chose to cancel as much as 126 long-haul flights, along with 10 continental connections.
The cancellations will affect 100,000 travelers going to or from Frankfurt, Munich and Duesseldorf.
They were announced even as the airline and the union said late Tuesday they were open to mediation.
Separately, German pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) filed a complaint with Germany’s constitutional court to challenge a legal ruling that forced it to halt its strikes at Lufthansa in September.
Over and above this, Lufthansa is offering all Lufthansa German Airlines flight attendants a salary increase of 1.7 per cent, effective January 1st, 2016, as well as a salary increase of a further 1.7 effective at the beginning of 2017.
Striking Lufthansa crew at Frankfurt Airport. Lufthansa also cancelled more than 500 flights last Saturday. The court in Darmstadt is due to meet this evening but it is unclear when a decision will be made.
Lufthansa fell as much as 2.3 percent to 13.21 euros, the lowest intraday price since October 30, and was trading down 1.2 percent at 2:47 p.m.in Frankfurt.
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Lufthansa scrapped 929 flights on Monday, grounding 113,000 passengers.
