Lufthansa has cancelled 1,350 flights today and tomorrow after talks on proposed changes to an early pilots’ retirement scheme broke down again.

Both pilots union Vereinigung Cockpit and Lufthansa management have separately confirmed that this industrial action will affect all Lufthansa short-haul and continental flights from 12.00 today (December 1) to 23.59 on December 2nd.

This latest action follows the misery endured by Lufthansa passengers subjected to strikes in both September and October over the same nagging issue.

Lufthansa said this morning that it is currently working ‘intensely’ on a special timetable for the strike period, although says that flights operated by its group partners of Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Germanwings, SWISS and Air Dolomiti are not affected.

 

 

 

 

‘STALEMATE’ BETWEEN PILOTS AND UNION

At the same time today, Frankfurt Airport is strongly advising passengers whose flights have been cancelled due to the strike not to travel to the airport today or tomorrow. [Any readers wishing to check the status of their flights can do so by clicking this link: http://www.lufthansa.com/online/portal/lh/de/flight_services/cancelled_flights?nodeid=1410039030&l=en&cid=18002]

The Vereinigung Cockpit pilots association claims that ‘despite all efforts to compromise proposals from the pilots in several rounds of negotiations since October’, points of conflict between both parties have not been resolved. It claims that the Lufthansa Group Board is eliminating a collective conditions agreement.

For its part, Lufthansa has asked the pilots to return to the negotiating table and it maintains it has already made some concessions, including a 5% pay rise.

[TOP IMAGE: Going nowhere. Talks between Lufthansa and the Vereinigung Cockpit pilots union have reached an impasse].