Pilot Strike Halts 360 Flights at Lufthansa Subsidiary

The German pilot union Cockpit called Thursday, August 7 for more than 700 pilots employed by Lufthansa subsidiary Cityline to observe a 36-hour strike in support of increased pay.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe’s second-largest airline, said it’s grounding about 360 flights today as pilots at the CityLine regional unit strike over pay. All airports in Germany are affected by the cancellations of domestic and regional European flights, Claudia Lange, a spokeswoman for the carrier in Frankfurt, said today in an interview. Long-haul flights are operating normally.

The pilots began their 36-hour walkout at midnight German time, the Vereinigung Cockpit union said yesterday. CityLine operates 50- to 93-seat aircraft, which connect passengers to Cologne, Germany-based Lufthansa’s mainline service. Lufthansa has offered CityLine pilots a 5.5 percent wage increase in two steps and bonuses of 7,000 euros ($10,800) for captains and 5,000 euros for co-pilots, Lange said. The union has said it wants the CityLine pilots’ pay to match their counterparts’ wages at Lufthansa’s main brand.

Pilots at CityLine, along with colleagues at Lufthansa’s Eurowings affiliate, also staged a 36-hour walkout that ended on July 23. That strike caused Lufthansa, which operates about 2,000 daily flights, to cancel almost 1,500 flights over two days. The union held a 24-hour strike on July 7 that forced Lufthansa to ground about one-third of its flights.

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