Lufthansa says Thursday pilots strike is needless escalation
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A sign with a logo of Lufthansa stands at Hamburg airport in Hamburg, Germany March 9, 2025. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer/File Photo
BERLIN, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Germany's Lufthansa criticised unions for a walkout planned on Thursday, saying it had no financial leeway to meet the demands.
German pilots' union VC has called a 24-hour strike on Thursday at Lufthansa's core airline and freight arm Lufthansa Cargo in a dispute over pensions.
The strike will potentially affect tens of thousands of passengers and is a sign of Lufthansa's long-simmering conflicts with unions in its drive to cut costs and become more profitable.
"The escalation is completely unnecessary," said human resources head Michael Niggemann on Wednesday, adding that the conflicts can only be resolved through talks.
Niggemann criticised the demands surrounding the airline's core brand as excessive, saying it "simply has no financial leeway".
Lufthansa on Wednesday declined to give a forecast on how many flights it would cancel or which airports would be particularly affected, pointing to a "constantly evolving situation".
Departure boards at Frankfurt and Munich airports, Lufthansa's hubs in Germany, showed scores of flights cancelled on Thursday, including long-haul connections.
The airline said it would try to re-book affected passengers on to flights of the group's other airlines or partner airlines.
The union's members declared their readiness to strike in a ballot last year to pressure Lufthansa into granting more generous retirement benefits.
Talks have since resumed but have been intermittent and without result.
The pilots' strike will affect all flights departing from German airports on Thursday, VC said in a statement.
Separately, the UFO union of flight attendants called on its members at Lufthansa's short-haul carrier CityLine to strike on Thursday over the planned shutdown of its flight operations and "the employer's continued refusal to negotiate a collective social plan".
(Reporting Klaus Lauer, writing by Thomas Seythal, editing by Miranda Murray and Alex Richardson)
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