Hundreds of Lufthansa flights were cancelled today as the majority of pilots at Europe’s largest airline started a four-day strike over job security.
Tens of thousands of passengers were stranded at airports across Germany after the severest industrial action in German aviation history started at midnight on Sunday.
Cockpit, the pilots’ union which represents Lufthansa’s 4,000 pilots, 94% of whom voted to go on strike, is fighting for a pay increase of 6.4% as well as job guarantees. It stressed its main concern was to secure jobs.
Lufthansa is trying to obtain an injunction to stop the strike, which is costing it an estimated €25m (£22m) a day.
The union argues that its members’ wages and working conditions are under threat from Lufthansa’s increasing dependence on its recently acquired foreign airlines, namely British Midland, Swiss and Austrian airlines. Their pilots are employed on worse terms than those at Lufthansa, reportedly earning up to 40% less. Lufthansa pilots’ salaries start at around €62,000 and can rise to as high as €250,000. The fear for Lufthansa pilots is that their counterparts will eventually replace them.
As last-minute talks at the weekend failed to avert the action, transport minister Peter Ramsauer intervened to try to bring Lufthansa’s management and Cockpit together, warning that the strike could have a severe impact on the German economy at a time of tentative recovery.
“We all know that a strike at this time could have horrendous consequences that would stretch far beyond the aviation industry,” Ramsauer said.
Dieter Hundt, head of the German employers association, said the strike was the “wrong path”, and urged the warring parties to return to the negotiating table.
A spokesman for Lufthansa said: “The situation in the aviation industry is the worst we’ve ever experienced. The responsibility for the effect of this action – on the customers, the future of the airline and on Germany as an economic location – is solely in the hands of the union.”
Thomas von Sturm, head of the Union’s wage committee at Lufthansa said the pilots were reluctant to strike, but had no choice. “This is not a great time, no question about it, but we can’t simply stand by and watch as Lufthansa gets rid of jobs.”
