Lufthansa narrowly avoid the second strike in a week. The German national carrier and the pilots' union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) have reached an agreement compensation after VC threatened a two-day strike this week, Wednesday 7 and Thursday 8 September, reports the Reuters. However, the details have not yet been disclosed and the union has not yet canceled its call for a strike by Lufthansa pilots. The deal follows last Friday's 24-hour deal, which forced the German airline to cancel around 800 flights.
The German airline therefore follows the path of British Airways Earlier this summer, workers at London's Heathrow airport were given an 8% pay rise by management to prevent the disruption caused by the strike from adding to the disruption of flight cancellations.
Lufthansa pilots' strike cancelled: what happened
"The collective bargaining negotiations with the Vereinigung Cockpit will continue shortly," the airline said in a statement this morning. "Due to the strike call published tonight, strike-related flight cancellations for Wednesday and Thursday must be decided today at 12:00."
The airline claims it was taken aback by what it called an unreasonable escalation. “We do not understand this way of proceeding,” he said Michael Niggeman, Human Resources Manager and Employment Director of Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
"The union will present the new request for the first time today," the statement continues. The previous request for automatic inflation compensation has been replaced by a request for a annual salary increase by 8,2% starting in 2023, in addition to the 5,5% increase this year”. The union's list of demands contains a total of 16 individual points.
As of 14.30 today in Germany, none of the Lufthansa flights for Wednesday and Thursday had been cancelled, according to data from FlightAware. The airline wanted to avoid a repeat of the serious disruptions of last Friday, which blocked most of its flights – suffering damage of around 32 billion euros – and affected around 130.000 passengers.
