(Reuters) — German airline Lufthansa cancelled 1,450 flights after a pilots union called for a strike on Monday (October 20) and Tuesday, adding to travellers’ misery after millions were left stranded by a weekend-long train drivers’ stoppage.
Lufthansa said late on Sunday more than 200,000 passengers and two thirds of its scheduled flights – short and mid-length services, mostly within Europe – would be affected by the strike.
Both the pilots’ and train drivers’ strikes hit at the start of a week-long, half-term holidays in nearly half of Germany’s 16 federal states.
The “Vereinigung Cockpit” (VC) pilots union said on Sunday the strike over an early retirement scheme dispute would last from 1100 GMT on Monday until 2159 GMT on Tuesday. Lufthansa’s low-cost unit Germanwings is not affected.
If it goes ahead it will be the eighth this year at Lufthansa.
“I’m working too,” said passenger Nadine Joerges, who was on her way to a business meeting inBerlin.
“I should have returned from Berlin tonight but then we changed everything yesterday to take a train back late tonight. We’ll get back to Frankfurt around 11 p.m. and it will definitely be a tough, long day. My sympathy is limited,” Joerges said.
Rainer Dobbener, another business traveller, said he was simply “annoyed.”
“I have lost sympathy and I don’t have any understanding anymore why this should be carried out at the expense of the passengers,” Dobbener said.
The strikes are hampering the national airline in its efforts to expand low-cost operations that will allow them to compete more effectively with budget carriers such as Ryanair and easyJet on short-haul European routes.
VC, representing about 5,400 Lufthansa pilots, is fighting to keep a scheme that allows pilots to retire at the age of 55 and still receive up to 60 percent of their pay before regular pension payments start at 65. The union has proposed a plan to cover the costs of the scheme.
Management, under pressure to reduce costs, has offered to keep the pension scheme for employees who joined the company before this year, but wants to increase the earliest possible retirement age for new recruits.