The strike by approximately 19,000 members of staff of Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cityline was announced on Saturday by the German cabin crew union Ufo, strengthening demands for, among other things, inflation-adjusted salaries.
All flights departing from Frankfurt on Tuesday and from Munich on Wednesday will be suspended between 4am and 11pm. As a result, 600 flights will be cancelled from Frankfurt’s home base and 400 in Munich.
According to Lufthansa, around 120,000 passengers are affected by the strike.
Flights to Frankfurt from Luxembourg were cancelled on Tuesday as well.
It’s been a difficult week for the aviation industry in Germany, as another strike by ground staff only ended on Saturday. In addition, there was a strike by security staff at Frankfurt and Hamburg. As a result, both airports closed for 24 hours on Thursday for all departing flights.
Ufo is demanding a 15% pay increase for its more than 18,000 cabin crew at Lufthansa and 1,000 at Lufthansa Cityline. Furthermore, the union wants a one-off inflation compensation of 3,000 euros and higher allowances.
There will also be a strike on the German railways on Tuesday. This will also seriously disrupt passenger traffic, Deutsche Bahn said.
The GDL train drivers’ union said the latest strike affecting passenger services would start at 2am on Tuesday and last until 2am Wednesday.
For cargo services the strike would start a few hours earlier, the union said in a statement, blaming deadlocked talks with rail operator Deutsche Bahn.
The walkout will be the union’s sixth since November and comes less than a week after a 35-hour stoppage by its train drivers caused travel misery for thousands of rail passengers.
Deutsche Bahn had called earlier Sunday for a fresh round of talks on Monday.
“We are convinced that we will only succeed in reaching an agreement through dialogue at the negotiating table,” said Deutsche Bahn’s human resources director Martin Seiler.
As well as salary increases, the GDL union’s key demand is a reduced work week of 35 hours, down from 38 currently, at full pay.
Deutsche Bahn said it had made concessions amounting to up to 13 percent more pay, as well as the option of cutting the working week down to 37 hours starting in 2026.
