Lufthansa tries to force striking staff back to work
The strike is part of a week-long walkout organized by cabin crew union UFO and will affect long-haul flights at Frankfurt and Munich airports, and all flights at Duesseldorf on Tuesday.
The report indicates that more than 110,000 passengers at Lufthansa’s German hubs in the cities of Frankfurt, Munich and Dusseldorf were impacted by strikes, and that nearly 1,000 flights were grounded on Monday alone.
The measures have triggered various disputes between the company and different trade unions.
The UFO flight attendant union says it will rotate its strike action to different airports as it presses its demands regarding early retirement payments.
A spokesman for the court said no hearing date had yet been set.
In response to UFO’s latest strike schedule, Lufthansa has made a decision to cancel as much as 126 long-haul flights, along with 10 continental connections.
The strike began on Friday at Germany’s three main airports, with tens of thousands of passengers affected so far by hundreds of cancellations. “We are impressed and it shows how angry people are with the airline”, said the head of the UFO union, Nicoley Baublies.
The action, in its third day, is expected to last a week, becoming the longest in Lufthansa’s history as both sides fail to agree on cost cuts. Over 1,000 Lufthansa flights were canceled in September due to the latest pilots’ strike.
Lufthansa has been able to carry out most flights despite extensive cancellations.
However, the airline said that as a result of the improved offer, which increases the one-time payment by 50%, the airline would be forced to re-evaluate its capacity and routes.
Lufthansa shares fell 2.2 percent to 13.64 euros by 0555 ET and were the second-biggest decliners in a flat German blue-chip index.
VC said its complaint was based on two grounds: that the court was wrong in saying the pilots were striking for reasons other than early retirement benefits, and that the court had wrongly assumed the jurisdiction of a higher federal court.