Lufthansa strikes cause havoc at German airports

Berlin — German pilots stopped work briefly at three Lufthansa subsidiaries early on Wednesday, causing cancellations and delays at most of the country’s major airports in support of demands for higher pay.

Eurowings, Germanwings and Lufthansa-CityLine were hit by the token strikes with 46 flights cancelled by the time the strikes ended at 8am.

Pilots union Cockpit said a further 100 had been delayed, most of them domestic flights.

Cockpit spokesman Markus Kirschneck said the union had "no alternative" in the face of Lufthansa’s intransigent position.

The company had offered the 1,500 pilots involved an increase of 2 percent or less, even though it had shown record profits last year, Kirschneck told national commercial broadcaster n-tv.

The 4,400 pilots at Lufthansa and Lufthansa cargo secured pay increases in January.

Among the airports affected were Germany’s main hubs of Frankfurt and Munich, along with Cologne-Bonn and Dusseldorf.
DPA