Lufthansa Cancels 876 Flights on November 23 Due to Pilots’ Strike

UPDATE: The Vereinigung Cockpit union has announced another 24-hour strike for Thursday, November 24

German airline Lufthansa on Tuesday announced that it has cancelled more than a third of its flights scheduled for Wednesday ahead of a planned 24-hour strike by the carrier’s pilots.

The 876 cancelled flights, from approximately 3,000 daily flights of the Lufthansa Group, will affect some 100,000 passengers, the airline said. The strike, called by the Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union, will run from midnight and affect short-haul and long-haul flights departing from German airports. A special flight schedule for the duration of the strike has been enabled on the LH.com website at noon today, allowing customers to verify whether their flight will be taking place as scheduled.

According to reports, the pilot union has called the strike due to a long-running dispute with management over wages. Lufthansa’s pilots say they have gone without a pay rise for more than five years and are asking for an average annual increase of 3.7 percent.

The group airlines Eurowings, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Air Dolomiti and Brussels Airlines are not affected by the strike. Flights to and from Germany that are operated by group airlines are also not included in the call to strike. Flight operations at the Zurich, Vienna and Brussels hubs will proceed as scheduled. Austrian and SWISS are currently reviewing the possibility of increasing their flight capacity to Germany.

Lufthansa plans to operate individual routes tomorrow in spite of the strikes. Among other destinations, flights are planned from Frankfurt to Chicago, Delhi, Haneda, Houston, Miami and Washington. A total of three intercontinental flights are scheduled to depart from Munich tomorrow – to San Francisco, Newark and Charlotte. Other connections, including Hong Kong and Shanghai, are being postponed until Thursday.

Lufthansa asks all its customers to check the status of their flight on LH.com before travelling to the airport and will also be notifying passengers of potential flight cancellations by e-mail or SMS. Customers can also call the airline’s free hotline at 0800 850 60 70 for information (free from German landlines).