Lufthansa pilots threaten more strikes
October 21, 2014
The Lufthansa pilots' union, Cockpit, planned to resume flights at 10 p.m. local time (2000 UTC) on Tuesday, but made it clear that it was not willing to bow down to the company's proposed labor changes. The union also threatened to call further strikes this week.
"If there is no progress in this labor conflict, if Lufthansa keeps stonewalling, we won't rule out further strikes this week," Markus Wahl, a spokesman for Cockpit, told reporters.
"We explicitly do not rule out further strikes this week if Lufthansa doesn't budge," Wahl told Reuters news agency.
The current strike is the eighth this year and began on Monday with walkouts by pilots on European and German routes. The airline employees extended the strike on Tuesday to include international flights to Asian and American routes.
As a result, Lufthansa was forced to cancel 1,511 flights over the past two days, stranding almost 166,000 air passengers. Almost all long-distance flights from Lufthansa's main hub in Frankfurt were halted, although some flights from Munich were being operated by pilots not belonging to the union.
Members of Cockpit labor union want to preserve the airlines' current labor agreement, according to which pilots can retire after 55 with generous benefits. By contrast, Lufthansa wants to extend the age limit to 60, with the explanation that the system is obsolete and pilots may legally work until the age of 65.
The airline also says that the scheme is now economically unviable, raising its running costs beyond those of its competitors. The German carrier has incurred losses of nearly 70 million euros ($89 million) because of strikes this year, although analysts believe that the figure may go up to 100 million.
mg/kms (Reuters, dpa, AFP)