GERMANY: Lufthansa Cancels 2,755 Flights

A bitter pay dispute at Lufthansa will disrupt flights for a fourth consecutive day after pilots extended their strike through Saturday.

The strike began Wednesday and was originally planned for 24 hours. Over the four strike days, Lufthansa has been forced to cancel 2,755 flights, affecting 345,000 passengers.

Saturday's strike will affect all long-haul flights operated by Lufthansa. The airline said there may also be a few cancellations on short and medium-haul routes as a result of the previous days' strike. Other Lufthansa Group carriers -- which include Eurowings, Germanwings, SWISS and Austrian Airlines -- have not been affected.

The airline is encouraging customers to check the status of their flight online, saying most will operate as usual. It has also apologized to customers and said that passengers will not be charged a fee to rebook.

Meanwhile, it is trying to cope with stranded passengers. The airline has booked thousands of hotel rooms in Frankfurt and Munich, and set up folding cots at Frankfurt airport for passengers who can't leave its terminals due to visa restrictions.

Frustrated customers have taken their complaints to social media.

"Seriously @lufthansa? Canceled flight home for Thanksgiving canceled without any explanation?" complained one Twitter user.

Seriously @lufthansa? Canceled flight home for Thanksgiving canceled without any explanation?

Lufthansa's pilots say they have gone without a pay rise for more than five years. They are asking for an average annual increase of 3.7%.

In support of their case, they point to record profits at the airline. They also claim that top company executives have seen their pay rise by as much as 30% in recent years, while board members have received even bigger hikes.

Lufthansa (DLAKY) said it had offered to enter arbitration with the union in an attempt to resolve the dispute. It said it pays pilots more than its competitors, and claimed the future of the airline was at stake,

"As members of the executive board, we are responsible for more than 120,000 employees and want to keep Lufthansa viable for the future," said Harry Hohmeister, a senior Lufthansa executive. "That will not be possible with a demand for a 20% increase in pay."

Shares in the airline have fallen by just over 2% this week.

Last year, a strike by flight attendants forced Lufthansa to cancel about 4,700 flights over seven days. The airline said about 550,000 passengers were affected by the strike, which was the longest in its history.

900 Flights Cancelled Lufthansa Strike

Lufthansa said it would cancel nearly 900 flights on Wednesday because of a strike by pilots, causing travel disruption for tens of thousands of passengers in the latest escalation of a long-running pay dispute.

The stoppage, called by the pilots’ union Cockpit, would start at midnight and affect Lufthansa flights at airports across Germany.

Out of its roughly 3,000 scheduled flights, 876 would be cancelled due to the strike, “affecting some 100,000 passengers”, Lufthansa said in a statement.

It is the union’s 14th strike since April 2014.

Cockpit had initially called for a 24-hour stoppage but said late on Tuesday that the strike would continue into Thursday for both long and short-haul flights leaving Germany.

Meanwhile a separate walkout by cabin crew at Lufthansa’s low-cost airline Eurowings led to the cancellation of more than 60 flights at airports in Hamburg and Düsseldorf on Tuesday.

The industrial action was called by Germany’s biggest services union Verdi in a row over pay and working conditions.

The Lufthansa pilots going on strike are demanding a pay rise of an average of 3.66% per year, retroactive for the past five years.

The union says pilots have endured a wage freeze over that time and suffered a “significant loss of purchasing power” due to inflation, while Lufthansa has made billions in profits.

It had offered a 2.5% wage hike.

GERMANY: Lufthansa Strike Extended, To Hit 1,000 Flights On Wednesday

Lufthansa Air has announced it will cancel 1,000 short- and medium-term flights in and out of Germany Wednesday on the second day of a two-day walkout by its pilots.

The carrier said Tuesday it had filed a court injunction in a bid to prevent the industrial action – the 13th walkout in 18 months – as the company struggles to end a long-running dispute over early retirement provisions.

“One thousand Lufthansa flights are cancelled, 140,000 passengers will be affected,” Lufthansa said in a statement after the pilots’ union, Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), announced that it was extending a strike that began early Tuesday into a second day on Wednesday.

Out of a total 1,520 Lufthansa flights that should have flown on Wednesday, only just over 500 would go ahead, the carrier said.

Only Lufthansa services would be hit, while flights by the group’s other airlines, Germanwings, Swiss, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines would operate normally.

The carrier said it apologised to passengers for any inconvenience caused and added they would be able to rebook their flights free of charge.