Lufthansa pilots strike for two days, flights severely hit | EUROtoday

Pilots with Germany’s flagship provider Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo and subsidiary Eurowings started a 48-hour strike on Monday morning.

Hundreds of flights are set to be canceled, with the most important hubs of Frankfurt and Munich hit hardest, within the fourth strike of 2026 to hit the airline.

Lufthansa is struggling to barter phrases each with the pilots’ commerce union Vereinigung Cockpit and the UFO cabin crew union that referred to as on members to strike simply final week.

Which flights and providers had been set to be affected by the strike?

The homepage of Frankfurt AirportGermany’s busiest, confirmed nearly all of Lufthansa departures inside Europe as canceled on Monday.

Several home German flights had been indicated as substitute rail providers as an alternative.

“As a result of the strikes at Lufthansa by the pilots’ trade union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), there will be delays and cancellations for Lufthansa flights all day on April 13 and 14 at Frankfurt Airport,” the hub mentioned in a press release.

The subsequent busiest airport, Munichseemed to be exhibiting solely the flights nonetheless scheduled in its departures search window. But it included a warning to Lufthansa and Eurowings passengers of extreme strike-related disruptions, telling them to test with their suppliers for information of cancellations.

Eurowings pilots are solely placing on Monday, not Tuesday, whereas Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cargo pilots with the Cockpit union have been instructed to strike for 2 days. Eurowings had mentioned on Sunday that it anticipated to have the ability to maintain “a large part” of providers within the air regardless of the strike.

Not all pilots with Lufthansa’s airways are VC members and full participation within the strike can be not assured.

Middle Eastern flights exempt amid Iran and Gulf battle

The VC union mentioned that it could not strike on these flights nonetheless in a position to depart to an array of locations within the Middle East, given the journey uncertaintly prompted for greater than a month now by the battle in Iran and the broader area.

Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cityline flights from Germany to Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Egpyt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen would all be exempt from the strike motion, based on VC.

What did the airline and the union say in regards to the newest strike?

“Lufthansa is working intensively to keep the impact on our passengers as low as possible. We are trying to have as many flights as possible operated by other airlines within the Lufthansa Group and by partner airlines,” Lufthansa mentioned on its web site.

It additionally suggested passengers whose flights had been canceled altogether that they may alternate their tickets for Deutsche Bahn rail tickets.

The pilots’ strike middle on pay disputes, together with the corporate pension scheme and remuneration on the regional subsidiary CityLine.

The airline criticized VC’s choice to strike, a couple of days after it introduced a deal for each pilots and floor workers with rival commerce union Verdi as its negotiations with specialist unions VC and UFO degenerate into repeated strikes.

It mentioned that the union’s core demand “for the doubling of an already above-average and excellent company pension plan is absurd and unfulfillable.”

VC, in the meantime, laid a lot of the blame with Lufthansa.

“Vereinigung Cockpit sees itself as forced into this step, after the employer showed no recognizable willingness for a solution in several wage disputes,” VC President Andreas Pinheiro mentioned. “Despite consciously refraining from strike action over the Easter bank holidays, offers worth taking seriously are still not forthcoming. In this time there was neither a reaction nor recognizable signs of a willingness to negotiate from the employer’s side.”

Edited by: Louis Oelofse