Lufthansa cabin crew strike officially ends
November 9, 2019
The two-day strike of Lufthansa cabin crew ended at midnight on Friday, however carry-on effects will likely ground flights on Saturday too.
About 600 flights were cancelled on Friday as a 48-hour Lufthansa cabin crew strike entered its second day.
The 600 cancelled flights were out of a total of 1362, and mainly departed from the Munich and Frankfurt hubs. Approximately 180,000 of Germany's flagship airline's passengers were affected.
The UFO union, which represents about 21,000 Lufthansa crew, called the strike in a dispute over pay and the union's legal status.
On Thursday, 700 flights from the main group's schedule of 1,100 were axed.
The strike continued after the German airline's chief executive, Carsten Spohr, and UFO agreed to a new round of arbitration at the weekend to set the agenda for a new round of talks in the dispute over pay and conditions.
Further action threatened
UFO spokesman Nicoley Baublies said the union was open to discussions but not to ending the two-day strike.
"If the talks don't work out, we will have to announce on Monday that there will be more strikes," Baublies told reporters at Munich airport.
The strike action is aimed at obtaining higher expenses and allowances for approximately 21,000 flight crew, as well as improved career possibilities among seasonal workers.
The union, though, will not extend the strike to other airlines in the Lufthansa group such as Eurowings, Swiss, Austrian or Brussels Airlines.
Corporate silver lining
In some relief for the company, Lufthansa's share price took off on Thursday largely thanks to a cost-cutting program already underway at its budget airline Eurowings.
Carsten Spohr said the group was "taking tangible corrective action to improve earnings."
aw, jsi/dr (dpa, Reuters, AFP, AP)
Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.