Lufthansa Pilots and Cabin Crew Announce Strike Over Pensions

A strike at Lufthansa has been announced for Thursday as the pilot union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) intensifies its dispute over company pension arrangements. A spokesperson for the union confirmed to AFP on Tuesday evening that the strike call applies to Lufthansa’s mainline operations as well as its cargo division. The Unabhängige Flugbegleiter Organisation (UFO) has separately urged cabin crew at Lufthansa CityLine to participate in a warning strike during the same period.

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According to VC, “the industrial action affects all flights departing from German airports between 00:01 and 23:59 local time.” VC President Andreas Pinheiro assigned responsibility to Lufthansa for the escalation, saying, “We would very much have preferred to avoid an escalation.” He added that the union had been “ready to talk at any time” and had “made several attempts to bring movement into the negotiations.”

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Pinheiro appealed to passengers for understanding. “After the strike ballot at the end of September, we deliberately gave Lufthansa several months to reach a workable solution,” he said. “This window of time was once again not used by the employer.”

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VC members had approved strike action at Lufthansa’s mainline operations and its cargo division with a large majority during a ballot completed at the end of September. Despite the mandate, the union again sought discussions with Lufthansa, even though no new offer had been presented. VC stated at the end of October that these talks had also ended without results.

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Nevertheless, the union announced in November that it would “temporarily” refrain from strikes at Lufthansa in order to give the company’s management “sufficient time” to present “a negotiable proposal for an improved company pension plan.” VC did not specify a deadline for this. UFO, for its part, said it was calling for a warning strike “in light of the publicly announced closure of Lufthansa CityLine’s flight operations and the employer’s continued refusal to negotiate a collectively agreed social plan.”

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The flight attendants’ union stated that “all departures of Lufthansa CityLine from the airports in Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Bremen, Stuttgart, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Berlin and Hanover” would be affected. UFO added that the warning strike could end at any time “as soon as the employer is genuinely prepared to negotiate a collectively agreed social plan.”

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