Lufthansa pilots are planning a walkout on Tuesday for the fifth time this year over retirement benefits, just as pilots at Air France end a two-week strike over that airline’s cost-cutting plans.
Lufthansa pilots’ union, Vereinigung Cockpit, said Monday that the industrial action would take place at Frankfurt airport, Germany’s largest, from 8 am to 11 pm (0600 to 2100 GMT).
Travellers will face fresh disruptions as long-haul flights will be affected. The union said services on Airbus A380, A330, A340 and Boeing B747 would be hit.
It said it was forced to resort to such measures as talks with the Lufthansa management were deadlocked and it had not offered a compromise.
The group’s pilots have already walked off the job four times this year over Lufthansa’s plans to scrap its current retirement benefits scheme.
Those strikes resulted in the cancellation of 4,300 flights and forced hundreds of thousands of passengers to face lengthy delays or make alternative transport arrangements.
The strike call comes a day after the largest pilots’ union at Air France called off a strike that had lasted two weeks, costing the airline more than 200 million euros, according to management.
The SNPL union said it was ending the walkout out of a “sense of responsibility,” despite failing to reach agreement with the carrier on the development of its low-cost subsidiary Transavia.
The pilots had been severely criticized for their perceived intransigence by the government, media and Air France ground staff.
The airline, which was forced to cancel thousands of flights, welcomed the end of the protest and said the flight schedule would “gradually return to normal” from Tuesday.
The pilots are pushing for a single contract for all Air France pilots that would also cover those at Transavia, its discount division which Air France aims to develop into a rival of low-cost operators such as Ryanair and Easyjet.
Air France has rejected their demands, saying it needs to cut costs to compete in the competitive European leisure travel market.
Lufthansa, too, is battling to reduce costs in the face of stiff competition from budget airlines and new emerging Middle East carriers, including Abu Dhabi-based Etihad and Dubai-based Emirates.
The 5,400 pilots employed at Lufthansa, its budget offshoot Germanwings and Lufthansa Cargo want the company to maintain its current retirement benefits system, under which they can retire at 55 and continue to receive part of their wages.
