Lufthansa canceling nearly all flights because of pilots' strike

Lufthansa, the German flag carrier, will have to cancel 800 flights tomorrow because pilots for Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cargo are going on strike. Because of the strikes, the airline said that almost all of tomorrow’s flights to and from the airports in Frankfurt and Munich would be canceled. 

This summer, there have been a lot of strikes in the European aviation industry. Some of the airlines affected include SAS, Iberia Express, and Lufthansa. This is not the first time Lufthansa has had to deal with strike action. This summer, the German flag carrier canceled most flights for 24 hours because ground handlers at German airports went on strike. 

Lufthansa has canceled about 800 flights to and from Frankfurt Airport and Munich Airport for tomorrow. Before the strike, which starts at 00:01 local time and ends at 23:59, more flights will have to be canceled tonight. The airline says that most of its flights won’t happen tomorrow. Lufthansa thinks that the cancellations will affect 130,000 passengers, and the problems are likely to last through the weekend. 

This weekend is the last weekend of summer vacation in the federal states of Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Saarland. This meant that the German airline was likely to have a lot of passengers. 

What’s the reason behind the pilot’s strike?

The union says that Lufthansa’s pilots need a much better offer of payment from the airline. Lufthansa “did not make a good enough offer,” the union said, and right now the two sides are “too far apart.” 

In two steps, the airline said it had offered pilots a monthly basic pay increase of €900 ($902.89). This means copilots with less experience get 18% or more, while captains with more experience would get about 5% more. The airline says that the union’s current demands would raise its payroll costs by more than 40% over the next two years, or about €900 million.