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Major flight cancellations

April 22, 2013

Trade union strikes have forced Lufthansa to slash its Monday flight schedule, which will hit German and European flights the hardest. The cancellations come after failed wage negotiations between the two sides.

https://p.dw.com/p/18KLK
Das Logo der Fluggesellschaft Lufthansa ist am 19.03.2013 an einem Gebäude der Lufthansa in Hamburg zu sehen. Im Vordergrund zeigt an Ampel rotes Licht an. Foto: Bodo Marks/dpa (zu: "Lufthansa streicht am Donnerstag hunderte Flüge wegen Warnstreiks") +++(c) dpa - Bildfunk+++
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

Airline staff at Lufthansa announced early Monday morning that their all-day strike has begun.

Affected airports include Germany's largest and Lufthansa hub, Frankfurt am Main, along with Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Hannover, Dusseldorf and Cologne-Bonn airports.

Verdi called its strike on Friday after three rounds of pay talks failed to produce an agreement. Lufthansa started cancelling flights on Saturday announcing that only 32 of 1,720 flights will take off from German airports on Monday, with domestic and European flights particularly hard hit.

International flights will also be affected. Only six of the 50 scheduled intercontinental flights will take off from Frankfurt am Main airport.

Lufthansa has asked travellers to visit www.lufthansa.com to check the current status of their flights. The airline has also activated a toll free information hotline for calls within Germany: 0800 850 60 70.

Passengers whose flights have been cancelled on Monday can re-book or cancel their trips for free. Lufthansa has also signed a cooperation deal for flight cancellations or missed connecting flights with the country's railway system, Deutsche Bahn. Passengers can use their flight tickets as travel vouchers for the train.

Lufthansa is anticipating a loss of millions of euros.

Failed negotiations

Negotiations over wages and working conditions failed on Wednesday, when Verdi chief negotiator Christine Behle rejected an offer by Lufthansa. The union complained that the airline's management had offered wage increases of between .4 and .6 percent over the course of the first year.

"For employees that is a sharp reduction in real pay and in no way acceptable," said Behle.

The union is demanding wage hikes of 5.2 percent and job guarantees.

Lufthansa had countered that demand with a more than 3 percent wage hike for certain positions over the course of 29 months, according to human resources chief Stefan Lauer.

The strike and flight cancellations come a month after a similar episode, in which Lufthansa was forced to cancel 700 of nearly 1,800 flights due to labor disputes.

hc/av (AFP, dpa)