Yahoo Finance Lufthansa cancels 1,300 flights as it braces for 48-hour strike
German airline Lufthansa (LHA.DE) said it will cancel a total of 1,300 flights on Thursday and Friday, after a Frankfurt labour court ruled in favour of the UFO union, permitting it to go ahead with a 48-hour strike over pay and conditions.
Some 180,000 passengers will be affected, with as 700 out of a planned 3000 flights are struck on Thursday, and 600 more on Friday.
The strike is likely to cause travel chaos, just as Berlin gears up for a weekend of celebrations to mark the 30th anniversary oft he fall oft he Berlin Wall.
Lufthansa ($LHA.DE) said that anyone with a ticket for Thursday or Friday can rebook on a Lufthansa Group flight within the next 10 days, or convert domestic flights for train tickets.
Lufthansa said it will immediately appeal the court‘s decision not to grant it an injunction. Its subsidiary airlines, including Eurowings and SunExpress, could also be affected by the staff walkout.
Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr invited UFO and two other workers unions to talks on Wednesday night, to no avail—UFO said negotiations were deadlocked. The union already staged a warning strike at Lufthansa’s subsidiary airlines in October and got a 2% pay rise.
