Lufthansa crew expand strikes

Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe’s second-largest airline, cancelled at least 350 flights today as cabin crew expanded strike action to three German airports in their second walkout of a 13-month wage dispute.

Flight attendants went on strike this morning in Frankfurt and Berlin, and will walk off the job this afternoon in Munich, the Unabhaengige Flugbegleiter Organisation union said in a statement. Lufthansa operates about 1,800 flights a day globally.

While largely affecting services within Europe, the cancellations also hit trips to Los Angeles, Chicago, Tokyo and Mexico City and will extend into tomorrow. Flight attendants in Frankfurt first walked off the job for eight hours on August 31 in the dispute over pay increases and wage scales as Lufthansa implements a 1.5 billion-euro ($1.9 billion) savings programme.

“We regret that it had to come to this escalation,” the union said in the statement. “However, the negotiations have reached a point where it left us no alternative but to strike.”

Cologne-based Lufthansa has already announced plans to scrap as many as 4,500 administrative and catering jobs from its 120,000-strong global workforce. Contract talks with the UFO collapsed on August 28, with the union outlining plans for short- term strikes that could be followed by unlimited walkouts.

Walkouts today were scheduled to span 5 a.m. until 1 pm local time in Berlin, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Frankfurt and 1 pm to midnight in Munich, UFO said in separate statements.

Lufthansa spokesman Thomas Jachnow was unable to confirm whether Berlin staff were returning to work as of 2:32 p.m.

An extension of the action across Germany would cost Lufthansa euro 12 million a day, according to Peter Oppitzhauser, a Zurich-based analyst at Credit Agricole. That would amount to 2 per cent of full-year operating profit, based on the analyst consensus figure, he calculates.

Lufthansa fell as much as 1.8 per cent and was trading 1.4 per cent lower at euro 9.67 at 1:56 p.m. in Frankfurt. The stock has gained 5.2 per cent this year, valuing the company at euro 4.43 billion.

“Because of the precautionary cancellation of long-haul flights in advance, the situation is a lot less stressed in Frankfurt than it was on Friday,” Lufthansa spokesman Jachnow said by telephone.

UFO wants a 5 per cent raise on a one-year contract backdated to April 1, and contends that Lufthansa’s most recent pay proposal amounts to a 1.5 per cent annual increase that would erode wages by 1,300 euros a month after inflation.

Lufthansa said on Aug. 28 that its raise totals 3.5 per cent over time and that all flight attendants would get higher pay.

The union says it also opposes a Lufthansa call for flight attendants assigned to Berlin, where the airline is expanding, to work 9 per cent more hours than elsewhere for the same wages, and has objected to the use of temporary workers.

“We extended the strike to Berlin partly for symbolic reasons, as some Lufthansa employees are already flying there with temporary contracts,” UFO head Nicoley Baublies said in an interview with the NTV television station. If Lufthansa declines talks “then we will extend the strikes further,” he said.

There is also no agreement about whether, after 2013, staff could be transferred to new low-cost divisions on less lucrative contracts, according to UFO.

Frankfurt was Europe’s third-busiest airport in the 12 months through May, behind London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle, according to trade group Airports Council International.

Lufthansa ranks second in Europe to Air France-KLM Group (AF) by traffic, or the number of passengers times the distance flown.