Lufthansa faces new strike

Pilots at German airline Lufthansa said Monday they would stage new walkouts on freight and long-haul passenger services on Tuesday in their long-running dispute with management over early retirement provisions.Tuesday's strike will begin at 0600 GMT and last until 2200 GMT.

Pilot's union, Vereinigung Cockpit, said in a statement the industrial action would only affect the Lufthansa parent company, not the other airlines within the group.

Lufthansa pilots have walked off the job 12 times since April 2014 to protest the airline's cost-cutting measures. The strike action has cost the company more than 300 million euros ($338 million).

Union and management are embroiled in a bitter dispute over management plans to change the pilots' early retirement arrangements. Lufthansa wants to scrap an arrangement under which pilots can retire at 55 and receive up to 60 percent of their pay until they reach the statutory retirement age of 65.

Moreover, pilots are also concerned about Lufthansa's aim to further develop its low-cost activities as it faces growing competition. Cockpit said Monday that it had made substantial concessions and accused management of seeking to "smash wage-agreement structures and demolish protective mechanisms in order to weaken the union."

Lufthansa, which also owns Swiss and Austrian Airlines, has embarked on a massive reorganisation, farming out much of its domestic and medium-haul services to its low-cost airline division, Germanwings.

uhe/cjc (AFP, Reuters, dpa)