Over 350 flights cancelled in Lufthansa strike

Sept. 6, 2012
Lufthansa flight attendants escalated their pay dispute with strike action affecting flights at Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich airports. Lufthansa cancelled around 350 flights with most on short and medium-haul routes, including the midday service from Dublin to Frankfurt.

Lufthansa flight attendants escalated their pay dispute with strike action affecting flights at Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich airports.

Lufthansa cancelled around 350 flights with most on short and medium-haul routes, including the midday service from Dublin to Frankfurt.

About a third of intercontinental flights were also scrapped, including services to and from Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Beijing and Mexico City.

Berlin-based members of the flight attendants' UFO union walked off the job for eight hours starting at 5am (4am Irish time) at the capital's Tegel airport.

Their counterparts at Frankfurt, Germany's busiest airport and Lufthansa's main hub, followed for eight hours starting at 6am (5am Irish time).

UFO then hit Germany's second-busiest airport, Munich, with an 11-hour walkout that starting at 1pm (midday Irish time).

The union opened its strike campaign last Friday with an eight-hour walkout in Frankfurt and warned of more to come if Lufthansa did not give ground.

The union has given only a few hours' notice of where and when it plans to strike.

UFO is seeking a 5% pay raise for the airline's more than 18,000 cabin crew workers after they went without increases in recent years.

Lufthansa has said it is offering a 3.5% raise and is calling for a slight increase in working hours.

The union objects to what it says would be only gradual increases and lower wages for new employees.

The airline and the union have also been at odds over issues such as the possibility of Lufthansa transferring flight attendants to its partner budget airlines with cheaper contracts as part of a cost-saving plan, although the walkouts are focused squarely on the pay issue.

Copyright 2012 RTE Commercial Enterprises Ltd / Radio Telefís ÉireannAll Rights Reserved